


The way in

by siriala



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Body Modification, M/M, Magical Pregnancy, Minor Character Death, Rape, Self-Harm, Show level violence, Top Dean Winchester/Bottom Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-22 22:05:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16606313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriala/pseuds/siriala
Summary: Sam really shouldn't have gone without Dean to hunt this monster down. Raped by an unknown entity, he finds himself carrying something that may not be quite a child, and there's no way to know if he'll survive this ordeal.





	The way in

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the 2018 spn eldritch bang, thanks to the mods for organizing this new challenge. I'm not sure how scary this fic really is, but it definitely plays with body horror. Please read the warnings and proceed with caution ! Better not read if you're pregnant. Also, I use canon characters for different purposes and at different times than they do appear in the show. Be aware they might not survive this story. I see it all happening somewhere around the end of season 6 and the beginning of season 7, but once again, some canon events are ignored and replaced by the ones in here.
> 
> For this challenge, I worked with saintedsam, a great artist whose drawings you can find [here](http://saintedsam.tumblr.com/post/180072322226/spneldritchbang-excited-to-share-my-contribution). They add so much atmosphere and soul to this story, please do not miss the opportunity to tell her how much you like what she did.
> 
> Thanks once again to my beta, the wonderful honscot, my English language savior and great friend. Between her very diplomatic 'I'm a bit confused about what you're trying to say here', and my very whiny 'Whhyyyy can't I say it that way ??? I'm sooooo confused', getting this fic better was another great learning experience and a real labor of love.

He hardly remembers how he got there. He only wishes, in the light of what's happening to him right now, that he hadn't been stubborn enough to come without his brother.

He can't believe that after all he's been through, a simple human got the upper hand on him and that he's getting raped.

He's not sure he can take this.

The only man he has ever desired is his brother. No one else, and certainly not this ragged excuse for a human being who hasn't washed in who knows how many days and looks deep into his eyes while he's fucking him, hard and slow, blood now easing his way in. The pain is staggering, maddening, and he should be fighting with all his power to push away this scrawny man who would be no match for him normally, except that Sam is letting his rapist take him as he wishes, plunging his hard cock again and again in his ass, neither of them blinking as the hurt gets always worse while the offending pleasure diminishes.

And yet the man keeps tweaking his nipples and biting them, more and more violently. He comes back time and again to Sam's cock to strip it with a force that seems inhuman and probably is, come to think of it, keeping it at full mast and always closer to the point of ejaculation. Sam doesn't want it, but he knows already it will happen, at any moment, and it will only add to his anger and shame with himself for doing nothing against this rape, collaborating instead by grasping his own legs in his own hands to spread them as much as possible and give room to the monster to take him just like he wants. To use him like a whore and fuck him for as long as he desires.

\-------------

_Two hours earlier_

This is the one. The way in. It can sense it. This is the one because his body is strong and his mind even stronger.

This is Its Father. The man that will carry Its seed to make It corporeal at last, able to rule over this universe the way It's meant to, to dictate over more than one human at a time to make them do Its bidding. So It's gonna have him, take him and breed him.

But before the man realizes the honor of being The Vessel, It has to subdue him through Its current vessel, the weak thing that can hardly wear It. So It makes him pronounce the sacred words that tie everything to Its will.

That's how Its Father is brought to It, always closer, to the point that It can touch him, disrobe him and dispose him the way It wants to worship his body.

\-------------

Garth was supposed to hunt a vampire. A nasty one, who's already killed twenty-three women, after he fucked them wearing his handsome human male face.

But what Garth found had nothing to do with a vampire. The entity who now resides in him and makes him do things he disapproves of is probably not even of this world, even though its power over it is astounding. It feels too… otherworldly to be of this plane.

The man they have trapped is beautiful. The entity using Garth's body to come close to him was able to get his name. Sam. He's strong, in body and spirit. Garth knows he's probably fighting to get away, deep down inside, just like he himself is. But words were pronounced by the monster that now bind him to let Garth do as he wants.

And God, does he want. In any other circumstances, Garth would be delighted to gain the authorization to touch such a gorgeous man. But here he is, disrobing him, admiring tanned skin and taut muscles under the pads of his fingers that linger to take in the power of the other man and relish in it. Already he feels the transfer going from one to the other, and the other way around, taking and giving, meshing.

His chest is strong, his heart beating rapidly, his cock is filling, bigger and bigger, under Garth's gaze and the touch of his hand, but it's nothing compared to his fundament, so to speak. Hands splayed on the man's ass cheeks, Garth can measure the rightness of it all, know for sure already that the man will be the Vessel the entity needs. He feels his own throbbing cock ready to spear him and he loses his own clothes. Any other time, he would feel inadequate, too tall for his frame, or maybe too skinny for his height. But not now, not knowing that this dreamy creature is going to be his.

He can't even feel bad when he finally pushes inside the guy and knows he's hurting him through the whimpers escaping his sealed lips. The tightness is too good, and the entity can't wait for the moment to take form, urging him to go on.

So Garth fucks Sam, and he loves every second of it. If it's the last thing he gets to do before the monster kills him, he will take with him the memory and sight of love made man.

\-------------

Nothing in this is normal, neither Sam's seeming agreement with the rape nor the impossible time it takes for the other – drugged ? – man to fuck him.

Sam knows it's been more than two hours because of the messages he's heard in the distance announcing the trains' arrivals at the station. They're in a nearby warehouse, abandoned and yet so close to other human beings. Sam could have tried to call for help, but ever since he heard the words whispered in a strange language he's been calm and willing, giving in to everything ordered of him. That's why he thought at first he was dealing with simple magic. His will erased, he let the guy take his clothes off, piece by piece, and throw them away in the dust of the room as if they were never going to be of use again. He stood, naked and cool, in front of his aggressor, submitting to his hated touches and feeling himself go deeper into his trance-like state as more unknown words were pronounced in his ears.

He hated it, but the touches were good, instantly intimate and probing. Sam felt his ass opening to let two digits in, showing no resistance other than the fact that Dean and him have been too busy recently to do more than quick handjobs before falling asleep next to each other and Sam's ass was not prepared in any way.

He lay down, the way the other guy told him to. Half over the dusty floor, embedding splinters in his back and ass, in his feet and hands ; half over the dirty, abandoned bags, full of pointy and hard undefined objects that hurt his back even when he's not moving. He spread his legs as he was asked to, unable to restrain himself but blushing with powerless rage. He obeyed and took hold of his knees to bend his legs, offering himself in the most revealing position he had only ever used for Dean before, and the monster spent a long while staring at him, uttering words that felt like sacred vows tying Sam's soul to its will and his body to its fate.

Sam couldn't help taking a long look at the other man's bobbing cock. It was hard and long, just like the rest of his too-thin body. The meatier part of it all, but still not very big. Yet if felt huge once it pushed to enter him. Huge and hurting, impaling.

It still feels the same more than two hours later.

\-------------

Three hours now, and the rapist is still going at it. Sam's ass feels more like blood than flesh at this point, despite the ongoing, flaring pain. The more his mind screams at him to break out of this trance, to fight off his attacker, the less Sam's body seems to be able to move. A part of him, the biggest one in charge at the moment, only keeps track of the dick's movements, going in, going out, sliding in, sliding out, pushing in, pulling out. And so it goes, Sam's prostate jolted with every hit of the other man's cock, and pleasure still a very alive part of the terrible process. His nipples are raw and bloody too, and yet he likes it when the tongue soothes and laves them for a while, keeping them peaked and red. His own cock has come to such a purple-red color he would be terribly worried and seek medical assistance if he were able to. It can't be good to get there without being able to shoot your load for so long, especially as it seems to want to, but something keeps it from coming.

Sam's whole body is on the verge of something, feeling fuller minute after minute, the way it did on the rare occasions he got to stuff his face full, back when he was a kid and they went to visit Bobby or another of dad's hunter friends, before John Winchester's bad temper pushed them all away, one after the other.

Leaving only Dean and Sam to be there for each other. No wonder Sam ran away at first, futilely trying to be his own man until he realized Dean and him were the two sides of the same coin. Soul mates, no less.

Right now, his soul is screaming for his mate, crying over the hurt the rape is going to put on their bond, wondering if it will ever recover.

\-------------

The entity has managed to throw tendrils of consciousness inside Sam's mind, and Garth bears witness to the thoughts and cries for help coming from the other man.

The loudest wish goes to his brother, Dean. Love and sorrow all together, the fear that he'll never see him again, never feel the strength of his arms around him anymore, the depth of his unconditional love.

Garth realizes then who the man he's fucking really is. The infamous Sam Winchester, and his brother is the just-as-infamous Dean Winchester. He's heard about them both through the hunters' grapevine. Good things, mostly, especially from Bobby Singer.

Apart from Sam's evil blood, and now Garth knows why the entity wanted this man so badly. His blood had to be like a beacon to it, the certainty that it could do anything once inside him, possessing such a vessel.

Garth would like to know how to stop it. Another time, another place, another entity, and he thinks he would rather cut off his own dick than harm Sam. But there's nothing he can do, save for pumping his dick deep inside Sam's ass again and again, and enjoying it.

\-------------

Seven hours. They've been at it for seven hours, and his rapist shows no sign of tiring. Relentlessly fucking him like his life depends on it, frenzied, uncaring.

At times, feeling like he floats over the scene where he's raped and not fighting, Sam wonders how this is possible. How not only the other man but also himself are able to maintain an erection for so long. What's the purpose of this assault ? The man has to hurt as much as him by now, so this is not pleasure he's seeking. It might be some fucked-up ritual – pun very much intended, to the point that it's not a pun anymore – but there's no incantation, and seven hours is a really long time for nothing to happen. There has to be a supernatural goal this endless rape will achieve, so Sam searches his memory again and again, the hunts he did with Dad and Dean, with Bobby or any other hunter, anything he heard since he was old enough for his father to talk about monsters in his presence, but he doesn't have the first clue about this. He never heard about a monster raping their prey for seven hours straight, just for the sake of it, and not killing them.

Then the other man gives a particularly strong push careening into his prostate, and Sam forgets everything that isn't the hated delightful sparks rushing through his body.

\-------------

Garth doesn't know how long it's been. He's been processing pleasure, of a sort he had never known before, for hours now. Feeding on it, wallowing. That's all there is to it.

What he knows when he's conscious enough – less and less now, and for shorter spans of time – is that his self has long begun to blur, blending with the entity. The physical bliss induced by the long fucking his body is experiencing is completely inseparable from the feeling of owning, possessing Sam's offered body. It's contrary to his character to enjoy hurting another man or thinking they belong to him. But as much as he tries, he can't seem to find it in himself to care if this gorgeous man has lost his free will to obey the entity's orders. Can't fucking care that he's raping him, or that he's becoming himself something he should despise and fight. Sam's feelings matter less and less as the time passes and Garth loses himself more and more in the entity and the ecstasy that he's beginning to suspect is the unmitigated sign of his upcoming death.

He is slowly erased from the universe and at this point it's highly dubious that something will remain of his soul once the entity is done with him. Not that it makes a lot of difference to him when he can enjoy blending with Sam fucking Winchester, becoming part of him, something that will permanently reside inside him.

\-------------

Twenty-five hours. Night has come back and Sam is now sure he'll die here. Dean won't ever find his body and he'll be left to rot, eaten by rats and insects, without a chance to be cremated to avoid coming back and turning into a vengeful spirit.

At first he thinks he's hallucinating, or losing his mind after more than a day of heated sex and losing blood, and the dehydration that goes with it. His eyes are playing tricks on him in the dark, the weak light coming from the streetlamps not close enough to make the other guy's body as clear as it was all day long. Plus he's got to be very tired now, even if he doesn't feel like it and he's still alert.

But the twitching he first thought he had imagined only gets worse, as if the man's body, already frail and sickly-looking, is now turning down on itself. Its outline gets blurred, edges irregularly disappearing only to reappear one or two inches shorter, like a star shrinking down before it turns supernova on Sam. Only there's no explosion, no implosion. Just the body getting dimmer and smaller, inside already depleted, edges uneven and blurry, except for the cock, or what Sam can see of it anyway and what he can feel deep inside, the endless fucking as strong as ever.

In less than four hours, most of the body has disintegrated to Sam's horror and disgust, reducing to a truncated torso and cut off legs, but still the cock keeps moving in him. When even the stumps of the former body disappear, the cursed cock still moves on itself and keeps Sam erect, hard like granite. He feels so full, hypothesizing that the substance and energy of the man have been fed into his own body through the hated dick, that he's been raped for hours to fill him with some entity that has already taken control of his mind and will now do so from inside his own body.

He loses his train of horrifying thoughts as the pleasure grows inside him in an inversely proportional measure to the size of the cock that has now begun to shrink too. Sam lets his legs go for the first time in more than a day, oblivious to the pins and needles and the pain of changing position at last, to his knees and back protesting being bent for so long at the same angle. He ignores everything to seize the man's member to fuck himself with it, quicker and more forcefully than ever. He needs the friction, he knows it, needs the pain and the blood easing the way in, needs to feel each and every jolt of his body as his prostate screams in pleasure and asks loudly for more. So he gives it, pushing his fingers inside to compensate for the smaller dick unable to give him what he needs now, save for the feeling of belonging to someone else, someone who will reside forever within him and will never let him feel alone.

It's on this thought, as the cock at last becomes too small to be of any use and manages to embed itself high into Sam's rectum, like a fertilized seed into a woman's womb, that Sam's own cock finally explodes. There's no other word for it, the supernova finally getting off. It's a fountain, a geyser of spunk that can't seem to end for at least five full minutes. Parts of Sam's torso and face disappear under the volume of semen, some even gets into his mouth when his screams of pain get louder than his cries of pleasure. Who thought coming for that long would be so terrible, and not just more of the incredible pleasure of sex ? Not to mention that his hands took hold of his cock of their own volition, stripping it like mad to make sure the ejaculation goes on and on, that no semen will remain unreleased in the confines of his aching balls that should be shrinking by now, the way his rapist did. But his balls are still very much there, big and strong, and he can feel them when one of his hands massages them to make sure they will go on and give him still more semen.

And then it's over. His legs are still spread wide ; his hands on his cock and balls keep with the hurtful massage. He feels every bite and every hurt on his utterly violated body, he remembers how he's been used, everything that's been done to him against his will, and he smiles.

He doesn't understand why he does this, but he can't help himself. He takes on his middle finger some of the spunk lying on his torso and gets his hand at his entrance, pushing deep despite the pain to make sure the semen will get as far as possible. Then he does it again and again, till all the semen has been cleaned off his abdomen and forced past his gaping anus far inside his rectum, even that which landed on his chin and cheeks – the drops on his lips, he couldn't help but taste with his tongue, and he loved it enough to eat it all and swallow despite his throat's dryness. Now the sensation is the same in his ass and his mouth, he feels revived, even playing with his own prostate with his long fingers and triggering two other ejaculations, the results of which end up in his ass again, as if the rape was just some unpleasant moment he had to go through in order to get better than ever, to feel stronger than usual.

Because he does. He's still of two minds. One has shut down, catatonic after being ravaged by the utter violation he went through for so many hours, witnessing the horror of his rapist's fate, and refusing to imagine the unpredictable consequences of what happened today. The other feels energized and ready to take on the world, imbued with inhuman power.

He's pretty sure he's become one of the things Dean and him hunt and put down for the sake of the world and other humans.

Dean. He needs to find his brother. Dean will protect and help Him.

He takes a few steps and then comes back, remembering that he has to wear the strange fabric his kind uses to hide in front of the rest of the world. He doesn't want to hide. He wants to show his power and abilities to the face of the world, have them all lusting for him and wishing they could have him.

Let's begin with Dean.

\-------------

Try as he might, he can't remember how he got here.

He's confused. The door of this particular motel bedroom looks like any other door of any other motel room, and he's seen so many of them !

Surely, there's a good reason for his presence in this place, but it's all just thick fog and black mist in his mind.

And suddenly the door opens and the reason stands in front of him, pointing a gun right at his face.

Dean.

Dean's pissed and threatening at first, but doesn't need more than a second to turn into a mamma bear, gun forgotten to take him in his arms, clutching him against his own body, squeezing hard and awakening all kinds of bruises and aches in Sam.

But he squeezes just as hard, because something, like an unknown voice deep inside his own head, tells him he's lucky to be there and he should enjoy it while he can.

Should be glad that he's got a solid – if battered – frame for his brother to squeeze on, and that he's not a disintegrating corpse, walking around until there's nothing left of him. All puzzling thoughts that don't make a lick of sense, even considering their weird lives and the weirder beings they get to mix with.

He lets Dean take him inside the room and close the door behind him as if to shut down the world.

\-------------

Dean has thought more than once he was going right out of his mind. Sam disappeared for the better part of two days, and now he's here, confusion written all over his face.

It's kind of adorable, to be honest, but he will go fight ten vampires with his bare hands before he caves in and admits this out loud. Sam was allowed to be adorable back when he was still a tiny blob of hunger and flatulence, rinse and repeat day after day. Not that it seemed that adorable back then, not to a four-years-older kid who'd have preferred to play outside rather than changing his little brother's diapers because Dad's too busy, or too drunk, to do the job. Dolls were never a favorite pastime of Dean's and Sam, anyway, was never accommodating enough to make him a good substitute. Even at that young age, he kept on noisily reminding Dean of his will and strong personality.

Which is probably why seeing Sam like this, lost puppy impression so earnest and impressive, tears at Dean's heartstrings. Makes him feel all mushy inside, and he's quick asking Sam where he's been and what he's done, to stop right now with the heart eyes and lovey-dovey bullshit.

"What happened ?" he asks as his right hand rises up of its own accord to cup Sam's face, and Sam looks back at him with the same question in his eyes.

There're tear marks on his cheeks, pale, dry rivulets on his dirty face, and Dean imagines Sam's crying while someone / something was harming him.

There're also cobwebs in his hair and dust on his clothes. Wherever Sam has been for the last two days left long-lasting mementos on him for Dean to try and retrace his steps. An old abandoned place, not that far if Sam came back on foot, not really knowing where he was going if his confused look means anything.

The only thing that matters, really, is that Sam is alive, and seemingly not too dinged.

"I can't remember," Sam finally rasps in a voice so rusty Dean doesn't ask before he goes to the minibar and grabs a cold beer for Sam to drink.

Sam inhales the whole bottle in five gulps, and then asks for one more. Dean obliges, wondering if Sam should stick to water, or go for something definitely stronger like scotch.

"I'm hungry," Sam says next, eyeing the remnants of Dean's dinner on the table.

This time, Dean walks his brother to the remaining French fries and burger he was eating when he heard someone in front of his room. He sits Sam down and lets him have at it.

"Listen, eat this and I'm gonna run to the joint right next door for more. I'll be back in a second, don't go anywhere ! You hear me ?"

"I hear you," Sam answers, and maybe it's the food and drink but there's a touch of annoyance in his tone that makes Dean feel instantly better, out of Oz and back to normal.

Dean checks that his money is right where it should be and goes to the door.

"Don't go !" he repeats before he shuts the door and really runs to get more food for his little brother.

\-------------

It takes but a short moment for Sam to realize he's alone in the bedroom.

Even though he often doesn't mind Dean's presence next to him, he usually enjoys being alone if it means studying or doing research. He never feels really alone with a good book.

But he's got no book right now. The burger and fries are quickly swallowed, and his stomach cries for more, but still, he wishes for Dean's closeness. It's kind of a shock to be confronted with the deep-seated need for his brother he can't ignore anymore, not when the walls seem to close in on him as he watches the door and wills Dean to come back. Right now.

His brain's still foggy, even though the food made him feel a lot better. He can't find in himself the usual strength that allowed him once to leave his family behind and would help him today to fight this terrible sensation that someone's watching him, ready to pounce, closing in. His heart beats too fast, eyes darting from one spot to another, from one shadow to another.

There's no one. Not even Dean.

Sam stands up so swiftly the chair falls down. The sound echoes inside his skull, bringing back his awareness of reality, and dulls his anxiety attack a bit.

He kind of remembers the bathroom being behind him, and cold water on his face might help to clear his thoughts some more.

He marvels at the fact that Dean let him out of his sight when he takes in his appearance in the partially cracked mirror above the sink. He's a mess. Dirty and disheveled, pathetic with sorrow etched all over his face. And he doesn't even know why. Still can't remember what happened to him to get him to look like that.

Considering his history, nothing good to be sure.

The faucet shrieks for three seconds when Sam turns it on, followed by the pipes complaining in a lower key, but water finally leaks out into Sam's waiting hands. He doesn't wonder why it looks like tears to him. Instead, he rubs off the marks left by the ones that ran down his face on some occasion he can't bring back to consciousness.

He doesn't really look any better once he's done. On the contrary, the wetness makes his eyes seem to shine with new tears, little drops clinging to his eyelashes.

It's maddening, this hole in his mind when it comes to the last two days. Maddening and quite a bit frightening. He _has_ to remember, to know what he's fighting against, make sure he's not in danger anymore, and that Dean will be safe with him once he's back. He has to.

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, using the meditation techniques one of Jess' friends taught him in the first months at Stanford, when he was too edgy to sleep and rest at night, because that normal life didn't seem so normal to him and he just couldn't let his guard down so easily. If Dean and Dad weren't there to protect him and the other people in his life, then he had to be the one in control, watching over his friends and lovers. Months later, getting with Jess had lulled him into a false sense of safety that ultimately cost them her life, and he won't ever forgive himself for that.

Being with Dean is a whole different story. They're brothers first. Soul mates, like Ash said. They fight together and have each other's back. Then, when fighting is done and time has come to be simple humans again, they can unleash this other need, this different kind of feeling they have for each other. Take the time to love, to show how much they care and want.

These feelings are the rock-like core from which Sam draws his strength. This is what he thinks about when he needs to center himself and reach for his inner strength, to keep going on and fight.

Eyes still closed, he imagines Dean smiling at him. Dean in his naked glory, making love to him. Dean singing loud and out of key, driving the Impala. Dean of the simple pleasures, happy and carefree, eating pie like he's found religion.

He opens his eyes and the reflection he sees in the mirror is not Dean's, but a tall, lanky man, frail and ghostly, who seems somewhat familiar. Maybe it's the hollowness in his eyes, the vacant stare suggesting nobody's home.

There's no one there when he turns around, but the feeling that he's not alone stubbornly remains.

And Dean doesn't come back.

He shouldn't have let him go. Eating is not that important that it couldn't wait a few hours, even when his stomach loudly complains that it needs sustenance.

There's something else crying at him now : his bladder. He can't remember the last time he relieved himself and he just drank two beers.

The relief is welcome and immediate and he feels a bit more grounded doing something so primal, so down-to-earth.

He closes his eyes again and enjoys the feeling, trying not to move to avoid making a mess he really doesn't want to have to clean afterwards. He pictures his dick in his hand, aiming for the toilet bowl, but something looks weird. The hand doesn't look like his, and the angle is all wrong, like someone in front of him is holding his cock and playing with it. And it's not Dean's strong, beautiful hands, the fingers are too long and thin. But here it is, his own hand at last, holding someone else's cock, and it doesn't look like Dean's either.

Is it possible that this memory loss is just a way to protect his relationship with Dean, to forget he cheated on him ? It's normally not in him to do something like that, but what if… ? What if he was drugged, roofied, and didn't realize he wasn't with Dean until it was too late ? This idea brings back the image of the ghost he thought he saw earlier, and the spirit is lost, naked and dirty, desperately trying to become corporeal but his transparence betrays how badly he's failing. Sam takes the ghost's dick in hand and plays with it inside of him, the angle weird once again, and he's got nothing but this cock in hand, attached to nothing but him, fucking him hard and fast.

He passes out.

\-------------

Dean finds Sam lying on the floor and his heart skips at least two beats.

It takes only seconds to make sure Sam just fainted, nothing worse, but still, he berates himself for a long while and wonders what possessed him to leave his brother alone, even for a short moment, after he disappeared for two days and came back not having a clue about what had happened to him during that time.

He's shaking Sam and calling him, ready to shake rougher if need be to wake him up, when he sees it for the first time. He thinks Sam's shivering from resting on the cold white tiles of the bathroom but there's no tremor under his fingers where they hold Sam's bare forearms. He's still inert, warm and solid… and then it dawns on him that as solid as Sam is, for a few seconds there, Dean's been able to see his own fingers through Sam's flesh and bones. Like Sam's losing substance. Like a non-corporeal ghost who's but a mere reflection of his past human appearance.

He himself does shiver at the thought of his baby brother turned ghost, and he has to squeeze harder on Sam's warm arms and shake rougher on his whole body to make sure he's really here. Not a ghost.

He almost succeeds in convincing himself he imagined it all because Sam then opens his eyes and smiles at him, confused again.

Even if the constant smiling is a bit out of character, Dean easily dismisses it and settles for relief. Sam manages to stand up, says he's feeling good but dirty, that a shower would be great, especially one with Dean. To make sure his backside is real clean, you know. And he says it with a naughty grin that has Dean's heart beating faster this time and his dick already responding to the undisguised invitation.

Sam doesn't wait for Dean's answer to begin shedding his clothes. It's sexy, willingly so, and Dean keeps reacting to the ever-present attraction his brother represents for him, but his arousal is dulled by the bruises that appear here and there over Sam's whole body as more of it is revealed. Bruises that tell a story Dean would like to ignore but he just can't. If someone – something – did to his brother what he's suspecting, they're dead.

Sam's unaware of all the thoughts passing through Dean's mind and, once naked, stands unmoving in front of his brother to convey his rapidly growing need ; then he turns around, showing off the magnificent ass he knows Dean would follow to the end of the Earth, and turns the shower on. Dean's unable to resist the lure even as he catalogs all the new bruises and red marks on Sam's backside. What the hell happened out there if Sam wasn't raped ?! They each get their fair share of bruises during hunts, but never so localized that Dean feels ill and wants to tear the world apart.

Yet Sam in this moment looks more like a siren seducing a doomed sailor than a rape victim, his head thrown back to let the water sluice over his whole body, soaked mane clinging to his skull. He never looks as gigantic like that, nakedness showcasing how thin he is nowadays, not bulked up the way he used to be back when he was drinking demon blood. But he's just all the more beautiful, the most beautiful thing to Dean's eyes, and Dean can't help coming closer to admire his lover.

The dirt he collected God knows where drains away, restoring Sam's skin to its usual healthy color. Dean's hands need to help, reaching for the soap Sam's passing to him. He's still fully clothed but he doesn't mind getting wet as he washes Sam's back. Again and again, he makes sure every square inch of Sam's skin is clean, rid of any trace any person or monster might have put on his brother. He reminds Sam's body who he belongs to.

Considering all the abuse Sam visibly sustained, Dean approaches Sam's ass with great trepidation. Touching the reddened skin doesn't seem to hurt him and after a few gentle washing caresses, he dares going further, spreading Sam's ass cheeks to check on him. He contorts himself to get a clear view and finds traces of what is surely blood, but once water and soap have diluted it, there's no particular sign of ill treatment, and everything still looks just as dubious to him.

Plus Sam's attitude is not the one of someone who survived a rape, confusing Dean even more. Sam certainly doesn't shy away from Dean's touch in the slightest. On the contrary, he pushes his ass back in Dean's hands when he feels he's not getting enough attention.

"Am I boring you ?" he asks, brooding and irresistible.

Indeed, Dean can't resist giving a little slap to that beautiful bottom in response.

"Jerk !" Sam cries, but he looks too delighted with the game to take it seriously.

"Don't be stupid, bitch ! You never bore me… not like this anyway."

Sam moans when Dean's fingers find his hole and push in. The slide inside is easy, Sam's ass opening for him as if it had been prepared beforehand. Dean never stops watching Sam's face, checking for any kind of reaction, but the only feeling he witnesses is bliss, highlighted by Sam's moans of pleasure as Dean rotates his fingers and plays with his prostate. Sam soon leans on the wall and spreads his legs, silently asking for more. Dean is too far gone to object, awash in Sam's scent, the warmth of his wet skin, just as needy as Sam by now. So he steps into the shower stall, getting soaked in his turn and not caring in the slightest while he takes his hard-on out to spear Sam with it.

Sam cries out, melting under Dean's hands as he welcomes his lover's cock inside him with the most ravenous hunger, asking for more and harder as Dean's just bottomed out.

"Easy, love," Dean murmurs in his ear.

He wants Sam to enjoy this, he wants them joined again as if Sam had never disappeared and Dean wasn't still worried about him. He wants them to have a long moment where only they matter, the rest of the world forgotten for a few blissful minutes.

So he goes slow at first, the way he loves it, to make sure his lover can only think of him and how good it feels to have him inside, deeper and deeper. He slides in quicker and quicker as time goes, a gift to Sam for not pushing him, for allowing Dean to love him so thoroughly. He makes sure Sam knows how much he wants him, how beautiful he is to his eyes by stroking every inch of his body, caring and feverish at the same time, taking possession of Sam and giving himself in the same moves, and if someone ever tried to take Sam from him, that is over now, because together there's nothing they won't achieve, and Dean's ready to be Sam's crutch for as long as he'll need it.

Sam's wet hair drips on his shoulder, his head still thrown back and his mouth open to let heavy moans get out. Dean knows he has to stop thinking and start fucking in earnest. He shuts his mind and looks at Sam while he takes his cock and balls in hands. With a cry of his own, he lets go of his fears and puts all his strength in his thrusts, pushing Sam against the wall again and again. One of Sam's hands, the one not holding him against the wall, slips behind, looking for Dean's hip as if to encourage him to go even faster.

So Dean obliges him, setting a pace that will not last for long, hard and fast, in the same rhythm his hands play with Sam's groin. They both feel the tension between them coming to a climax, and then it happens, this moment of ecstasy when all is white behind closed eyelids and everything's so good. Sam goes first, his semen covering the bluish tiles of the wall, and Dean follows shortly after, emptying his balls inside Sam.

For the longest moment, Dean refuses to open his eyes again, for fear he will see Sam's body losing substance again.

\-------------

They hunt. They save some people. They lose some others. Sam's okay with it, tells Dean it's par for the course and all that jazz.

Sometimes, it feels as though he doesn't give a fuck at all, and he doesn't understand why. Or maybe that's because he's always feeling out of sorts. Days are blurry, colliding into each other. Nights feel like a war zone. He dreams bad dreams, disturbing images he can't really remember. Dean's grumpy when Sam's thrashing and moaning awaken him, and even more when he thinks Sam refuses to answer his questions.

But they keep having glorious sex. Sam's constantly horny, and even if he wanted to, Dean's never known how to say no to him. So they fuck, as soon as they can, sometimes even when they shouldn't. Sam feels like he has to make the most of their time together, make sure Dean knows he's loved, so deeply.

There's also this knowledge, coming from God knows where, that he has to have sex. Lots and lots of it. Like it's the only way for him to remain whole. It's more than the feeling of being alive when Dean's buried deep inside of him. It's linked, directly, to the fear he experienced one morning while shaving. Seeing your own hand and the razor pushing inside your jaw, like it's not really here anymore, is the stuff of nightmares.

Next time it happens almost costs him his life, but also saves him miraculously. The pipslet they're hunting – a sub-species of wendigos, to believe Dad's journal – manages to take advantage of Sam's terror at feeling himself disappear once again, coming so close it should be able to crush Sam under its weight. Only the fact that Sam isn't exactly there anymore allows him to step away from its grip and give Dean time to shoot the monster.

It's not until he's had time to get his breath back that his body regains complete solidity and firmness, and he becomes very attentive after that to not exhausting himself so much during hunts, the way he ran and fought to catch the pipslet.

He keeps watching his reflection in mirrors after that. Doesn't dare touch himself, for fear it will happen again, that his chest will give way to his hand if he pokes it a little too long or too hard.

Dean doesn't have this problem. On the contrary, his hands never leave him for long, making sure to remind Sam where he belongs, tying him to this plane. Dean touching and taking him is the proof that nothing's changed, that he's not disintegrating, breaking off in layers, his essence becoming one again with the universe before his death. Maybe that's what happened to him during those two days he disappeared, and it scares him too much to bear thinking about it.

He knows Dean has seen something too, because he keeps looking at Sam with the kind of attention you reserve for someone who's sick and could turn for the worse any time. But they don't talk much. What would they say ? That Sam still doesn’t remember what happened to him ? That his nightmares don't make much sense but scare the fuck out of him ? That he's pretty sure he's been raped, but every time he begins to freak about it, something deep inside him seems to tell him to calm down, soothing, until the fear morphs once again into horniness and Sam grabs the first opportunity to get his pants down and Dean inside him.

This is the same feeling he gets when he finally decides to open up. Even if he doesn't really know what to say, Sam thinks he owes Dean an explanation. He doesn't want him to worry endlessly when Sam feels, in fact, quite good despite it all. But as soon as his mouth opens to speak, a tendril of arousal sneaks its way from his groin to his brain, and Sam loses track of what he was supposed to say.

He notices a strange correlation. The more Dean fucks him, the less Sam feels himself waning. He's become addicted to the feeling of Dean shooting his load inside him, and though he's clearly not at the top of his game in the thinking department, it's not long before he comes to the conclusion that Dean's semen is what's keeping him alive, or at least healthy. It's like his body is eating itself and needs more sustenance than a simple meal to keep working. And with such a big body as his, he probably needs a lot to not consume itself. If he's right, he's lucky to be in a relationship at all, and that horny is Dean's default setting.

\-------------

It’s Dean who thinks of a solution to try and understand what happened to him.

They have to use the dream root on a hunt to reach the mind of the victims and get them out of their deep trance. Dean volunteers to delve into all those minds while Sam tends to the bodies, making sure no harm comes to them during their sleep.

After the hunt, once all the people are saved and Sam and Dean are back to their motel bedroom, Dean sits Sam down and tells him they have to do it again, together this time.

"What you relive every night – yes, I'm quite aware of your nightly bad dreams – those memories you can’t remember consciously, I guess they come to you more easily in your sleep, so that's where I need to go to help you. And if I have to, I'll remember for the both of us. Will tell you again and again what happened, until your mind has no choice but to deal with your... ordeal."

It’s not like Dean to pull his punches, not when he’s talking to Sam anyway. They’ve been brothers for too long before they became lovers to change that. So it’s really weird to see him talking round to him choosing his words carefully, just like he feels unsettled now that Dean has stopped playing pranks on him. As if he’s too fragile to take it.

Sam never thought the day would come for him to say that, and he will probably regret it if things go back to normal, but he misses the stupid pranks now.

And something in him really doesn't want to know. Something very vocal, louder and louder, that makes him nasty.

"I don't remember you ever wanting to talk when you don't feel that good. And yet you think I have to, so you decide for me. Again."

Dean's face closes under the attack, but he stands his ground, ready to go to battle. Sam doesn't even know where those words came from, since he agrees with Dean on principle. To fight this weird thing that's making him transparent at times, ghost-like, he has to learn everything he can. But this voice, deep down inside him, insists that he has to remain blissfully ignorant.

Which is what helps him decide to go with Dean's idea, however frightening it might be to let the person closest to him in his mind. If it's come to the point where a part of him has been screwed enough to imagine ignorance is ever a good solution, then it means his thinking process is compromised. He has to rely on Dean as long as they don't know what he's dealing with.

\-------------

They call Bobby. Considering Sam's current state, someone needs to watch over them while they're both under and unable to wake up.

Bobby knows of their relationship, even though he's never talking about it and does his best to ignore the fact that the brothers he treats like his sons are having sex together. He knows because he caught them once in the act. Bobby's not the kind to judge, but it's a big taboo they're trampling over. Yet Bobby only asked for them to keep it all between them, never make him feel that awkward again. Sam's best guess for Bobby's detachment is that there's too much sadness and horror in this world to make troubles about love and the one happy relationship the boys get to keep and enjoy.

In return, they do their best not to throw in his face anything that could potentially make him feel uneasy. They're not usually the touchy-feely kind, anyway.

But this time proves harder. Dean hasn't yet overcome his need for one of his hands to ensure constantly that Sam's here, solid and real. Sam can't say he's helping much, staying close to Dean at all times. And they're still having sex every day, most days more than once.

Sam looks Dean in the eyes and it's clear they're both thinking about it as they lie down on their bed, seconds before they drink the dream root. Seconds after, they're somewhere else. They're arguing, the way they did before Sam went to hunt alone and disappeared for almost two days.

They realize at the same time that they don't have to go through this again. Without a word, Sam turns and leaves, certain that this time Dean will follow. And then he finds himself in the motel room again, arguing once more with Dean over where to look for the monster they're hunting. After a few hurtful sentences, they come once again to the same conclusion, and try to leave again.

Back to square one, in the motel room, Sam insists that they have to stay here and search the Web, to which Dean answers they need to interview the one witness. It goes on like that at least three more times before Sam realizes that's not the way it happened. Not exactly anyway. Dean did want to meet with the witness first, but Sam wanted to follow the trail he had already found on the Net : the railroad station near which most victims were found. Horribly maimed, guts blown and open, face frozen in a rictus of horror to illustrate how terrifying and painful the last minutes of their lives had been. The victims had appeared at regular intervals over the last year, which seemed to imply that the killer either used the trains passing by in one way or another to subdue his victims, or that they hid the crimes under the noise made by the trains coming into the station. Both possibilities indicated that there was a will and probably a purpose at work here, not only the need to kill and harm.

Thinking about it is the key to unlock this part of his memories. Still, it feels like something's ripped inside of him when he forces his way out and to the railroad station. It's an old and dark building, surprisingly welcoming once inside, a cozy place for travelers to feel at home. Sam knows the danger's not here, that they have to go further, Dean two steps behind him.

Sam makes his way into the street behind the station, to a darker area that has been abandoned for a while by the looks of it. He's sure he's not spinning a yarn when he feels Dean worrying about him, questioning his judgment when he decided to investigate this place without backup. But Dean remains silent, maybe because he knows this is just a dream this time. Maybe his heart doesn't beat furiously, like Sam's, as they make their way into the former industrial area recession has turned into a ghost town.

There's a moving shadow a few feet away, tucked between two warehouses. As he remembers doing the first time, Sam chooses to follow it, something telling him he's on the right track. He also remembers hesitating for all of two seconds about calling Dean and waiting for his brother to come and back him up. But never let it be said that Sam Winchester's not a stubborn bitch. On the contrary, he turns his smartphone off to make sure it won't ring at a bad moment and reveal his presence to the monster in case he's indeed found it.

"Stubborn bitch !" Dean murmurs in echo, but still he follows Sam's lead.

Sam's as silent as Dad taught him. Comforted and heartened by Dean's familiar insulting endearment, he creeps up inside the warehouse the shimmery form entered. He feels his heart beating even faster as memories seem to invade his mind and he tries to flinch away. But there's no escaping the images suddenly coming fast, nor the spectacle as he now watches Dean standing a few steps back in the top main room while he himself is lying on the floor, the shadow turned naked man impaled deep inside his ass, fucking him like there's no tomorrow.

He closes his eyes, hard. He doesn't want to see that, and he wants even less Dean to see it. To think Sam ever desired someone else since they've been together. But it's no use, and the scene unravels like a ball of yarn, like his life torn apart. It goes on and on, Dean rooted to the spot, sorrow clouding his face and warring with anger.

Twice it goes back to the beginning, to the shadow-man whispering unknown words to immobilize him and Sam feels himself once more unable to move or refuse anything done to him. He feels his body getting cold as his clothes are taken off, the insufferable pain of forced penetration, the frozen blood in his arteries, the revolting touch of the skinny body settling on his. The utter violation he can't prevent draped in the induced fog of the moment, painful dichotomy with the rage he feels boiling inside as he remembers and relives his rape.

He wants to punch the criminal, push him away, but he's just as impotent as the first time, and hours stretch with no change in sight but the ceaseless, constant and recurring moves of shadow-man's hips pushing in and out of him. In these hours made minutes, he thinks he understands at last the depth of his brother's love for him when Dean, just as unable to move closer, holds a hand out for him to take. Dean never flinches or turns his head away. He's here, solid as a rock, last fort of sanity for Sam to keep afloat when he feels himself sinking into despair.

Shadow-man's name is so apt that Sam and Dean watch in horror as his body starts to disintegrate. It takes a short while this time around, but Sam remembers when it really happened, the slow sucking into nothingness of all the matter that made this man's body. And even though it goes so much faster now, he's completely freaked out to find himself fucked by a headless corpse. Not mentioning fucking himself with a body-less dick that never comes out and has to be still embedded deep inside him. Deep enough that all the sex he had with his brother these past weeks never made it apparent.

And then he's up and about, feeling rather good, considering, which means more than anything else that nothing is as it seems. Dean too is liberated from the force at work, able to take Sam in his arms at last, lending his warmth and support.

\-------------

Dean is leaning over him when Sam wakes up.

Unlike in the dream, he can't take so much concern, not right now, still reeling from the knowledge of his… ordeal. So he gets up and updates Bobby. Tells him the salient points like it's no big deal, water under the bridge. After all, his assailant is dead. Sam might be a little transparent now and then, but he's not disappearing like shadow-man did.

He doesn't realize his eyes and nose are leaking rivers until Bobby puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, offers him one of his old-fashioned fabric handkerchiefs, and orders him to sit down before he keels over, because there's no way he's carrying his giant ass back onto the bed. The bed Dean's still sitting on, arms tightly wrapped around himself as if to force his body to stay where it is and allow Sam to grieve in peace. Unless he's got no other way to keep his own grief inside.

Bobby's already making conjectures. Hypotheses about the nature of the monster who was possessing shadow-man and attacked Sam. Suppositions about the reason why it needed shadow-man's body, his life essence, to be kind of downloaded into Sam.

"We don't know if it's still inside you, son. We gotta know what this thing is, and what it might do to you if you're carrying it. If it's the reason why your body lacks consistence. If this guy…"

"Shadow-man," Sam interrupts, the guileless look on the man's face forever etched in his brain.

"What ?" Dean asks.

"Shadow-man, that's the name I gave him. Because he was turned into a shadow, even before he disappeared."

"Okay," Bobby nods, "if shadow-man was a willing participant, a real man who had been possessed or a product of witchcraft created for this single purpose."

There's so much sorrow in his eyes, and Bobby's not better equipped than they are to deal with this. He needs to be doing something, anything, to make sense of what's happening to Sam.

"His clothes !" Dean says, standing up at last. "He took his clothes off in that warehouse. Maybe they're still there, with his ID. If we can find the warehouse, we might have a lead. Know who he is, where he was coming from, where he was possessed."

He looks at Sam, and so does Bobby, and the excitement at this new idea dies in their eyes.

"Sam, if you're not up to it, I'm sure Dean can find the warehouse again. From what you told me, it seems he saw most of the whole way from the railroad station to the place where it happened."

Sam wants to let them go alone, so much. Never set foot again in the city where he was raped, even less in the building where it took place. But it's not in him to let his fears guide his path, and he doesn't want to be left behind.

"It's okay," he says, and he means it.

They somehow kept close to the place Sam disappeared, never leaving for a hunt more than a state over, and getting closer as soon as they could, as if something was telling them to be ready to go back. So they drive fast, Sam dozing in the passenger seat, lulled to an agitated sleep by the gentle rumble of the Impala and his brother's assured driving. Bobby follows in his own car.

Two hours later, Dean shakes Sam's shoulder and tells him they're there. Through the window, Sam recognizes the station, an odd building clearly brought to its current state by different constructions put together over time. The streetlights make it prettier than in his memories, turning the white walls yellow or red in places and animating the many graffiti.

"Sure you want to come ? You could wait here for us."

"I'm sure," Sam insists, and Bobby knocking on the window allows him to let this conversation go.

Night is falling, the sky that deep blue that never fails to make him feel at peace with the world, but tonight is the exception. He has to grit his teeth and close his fists as they walk towards the station, and then past it. Sam doesn't need precise memories to find his way into the maze of the warehouses. Something seems to lead him, his senses alive with the certainty that they're on the right track, as if shadow-man was still there to show them the way.

Dean finds the right building first.

"Just like in the dream," he says. "Maybe I should go in first, make sure nothing's waiting in the dark to jump on us."

"No way," Sam denies him. "We're all going."

He's playing brave, but his heart threatens to run out of his ribcage by the time they stand in the big, dusty room where he was assaulted a few weeks prior.

And yet there's nothing here but dust and cobwebs, and a few bags of items so uninteresting that no one bothered to steal them. The sound of their feet echoes in the vast, empty space, and Bobby's voice is worse.

"Damn !"

Dean and Sam turn from their recollection, staring at the spot Sam had occupied for a while, still marked out by the absence of a years-thick layer of dust. Bobby has found the clothes they came for and the same kind of faux leather card holder they use when impersonating federal agents.

They get closer to take a look at what's Bobby's holding in his hands. The ID reads FBI Special Agent Walton Turbo and reeks of fake.

"Bobby ? You knew that guy ?" Sam wonders, recognizing his assailant on the ID photo.

"I did. He was a hunter, Sam. Garth Fitzgerald, a good kid."

Watching more unshed tears in Bobby's eyes is terrible and neither he nor Dean knows how to make it better for their friend.

"Well, at least we know he was human first," Dean concludes. "Not what he was doing here and why he attacked Sam, but him being a hunter adds to the abundance of evidence that he was possessed by something that made him do it."

It's too soon to know if being raped by a human instead of a monster is a relief. He doesn't think it will make much of a difference, but maybe knowing this guy didn't want to harm him, and that he would never have done anything to him in his right mind, will help him deal with the outcome. Help him add this ordeal to the collateral damage box that comes with being a hunter of all things supernatural. Help him forget and overlook.

They search the warehouse some more but nothing else was left by the monster. Right now, Sam and his symptoms are probably the better clues they have and they desperately need more. When Bobby drives back home, it's with the promise that he's doing nothing but research in the foreseeable future to find out what happened to Sam and how to make sure there will be no after-effect.

\-------------

At some point, the process seems to reverse. Sam is relieved at first. Two days pass and there’s no new episode of waning, no other try for a disappearing act. Three, four, five days, and he feels cautiously optimistic that his body's beaten whatever it was that he suffered from.

Until he begins to feel off in a new way. He feels... full, almost nauseous. But at least he stays solid so, really, no need for complaining.

Dean agrees. He doesn’t comment but shows his relief in the way he keeps stroking Sam’s body every chance he gets when they’re in bed. Relieved too, for sure, but not quite yet believing they're through, Sam safe and sound.

He's right, of course. They're never that lucky.

This feeling of fullness, it keeps growing. Sam was so afraid of disappearing, and now he can almost feel himself putting on weight. Getting heavier by the hour. And soon the heartburn begins, closely followed by the retching, and then he's throwing up. Twice an hour for two days, and then it stops. He feels full once more, and the smell of vomit is all around him, but he knows this phase is over.

That's how he stands once more in front of a mirror, looking at himself with horror as he takes in his rounded belly.

\-------------

Dean's never been adept at sorting his feelings out. Since Sam was raped, he takes each new development like a blow to the guts, or like someone's pushing his face under the water. Either case, he's running out of air.

He can't begin to imagine how Sam's feeling now that it's become obvious he's carrying excess luggage.

His natural inclination is to shoot and punch, but they're no closer to finding who or what turned Sam into a bun-friendly oven. So he just stands there, waiting on Sam hand and foot, cleaning up his mess when he's sick, wiping his brow when he's feverish, ignoring his own feeling of jealousy at the idea that if anyone had a right to knock Sam up, it should have been him.

Calling Bobby ten times a day in hope he will tell him who to shoot and punch.

It doesn't help that Sam's not taking this unplanned pregnancy very well. Even though Sam's craving sex once again after his bout of sickness is over, Dean soon realizes he has to tread carefully for Sam is very sensitive about numerous topics. In retrospect, joking about Sam turning into a woman might have been the wrong thing to say. But everyone's a critic, and the lamp thrown at his head was really uncalled for.

"I can't stand looking at myself !" Sam yells. "It's not me. I'm turning into some kind of hybrid monster, and I hate it ! My nipples are so sensitive, like a woman's I guess, and every time you touch them I feel like I'm gonna come right then. More sensitive than my dick or my balls, touching me there doesn't even do much for me anymore. All I want, all I dream of, is you sucking on my nipples and fucking me over and over again."

Dean finds he can't speak, torn between offering his help in any capacity – and god, he's so down with sucking Sam's nipples for hours and fucking him again and again ! – and swearing he'll find a way out of this for his little brother. It probably shows on his face, because Sam sends him The Stare, the one that should burn and incinerate Dean, no Phoenix trick to bring him back later.

They get over this in the same way they get over everything : with more sex, of course. Sam's given him his personal map to bliss-central, and Dean is quite adept at finding his way between the legs of his lover.

If Dean wasn't so worried, life would be great.

\-------------

The pregnancy is unwelcome in more ways than one. Sam's not only craving sex, food has become his second obsession. And not the healthy, vegetal meals he used to enjoy. No, he takes more and more after his brother and stuffs his face with burgers and fries, swearing it's the food of gods. Knowing it's probably because of his _child_ drawing on his reserves and that he needs to replenish his energy level doesn't help when he's got to deal with people other than Dean.

"Sure you want the extra burrito, sweetheart ?" a motherly waitress asks him on their way to Dr. Robert's, eyeing his overstretched shirt. "Seems to me you've eaten a few too many already."

Sam can see it's not said to hurt, but it does anyway. And there's no way he can tell he's not carrying a beer gut, that he's just pregnant. No way for him to joke about it, and the truth would get the woman running for the hills, possibly calling the shrinks to lock him up and keep him drugged until he stopped spouting nonsense. Even knowing he's got a brother to help him out doesn't make it worth the risk. So he looks the woman in the eyes and insists.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Suit yourself," she answers, suddenly a lot less motherly.

\-------------

Eva lets them in, indifferent as usual until her eyes fall on Sam's soon-to-come bundle of joy, and then it's like a switch has been turned on, making Dr. Robert's assistant act like one at last.

She helps Sam out of his jacket and shirts and then gets him on the table to lie down.

"Dean ! And Sam !" Dr. Robert exclaims when he comes into the room. "Always a pleasure to see you."

The man passes by Eva who still leans over Sam, checking his temperature and showing off her cleavage at the same time, and comes next to the table to discover Sam's more than prominent belly.

"And aren't you boys always full of surprises !"

His hands are cold on Sam's belly, calloused.

"So how did you catch this ?" he wonders as he kneads, pokes and prods.

"We're not sure yet," Dean answers to spare Sam. "We're working on it, but in the meanwhile it seems best to take it out."

"Yeah ? Well, we can try."

"Try ?" Sam repeats.

"Supernatural offspring tend to prove resistant to removal. Let's see what it looks like."

The doctor retrieves from a corner of the room an ultrasound scanner that he wheels back to Sam. It's third-hand material and looks like something teenage Dean could have worked on, back when his brother loved nothing more than tinkering with any device falling into his hands to create new hunting tools, until life squashed all the pleasure out of this hobby and turned Dean into a killing machine. Sam still wonders what part he had in this, mocking his brother's ability every chance he got before he left for Stanford, simply because he felt bad and trapped in this life he didn't want while Dean looked happy and carefree.

The lubricant gel applied to his belly is cold and takes him out of his bittersweet memories.

"So you've seen this before ?" Dean asks, full of hope.

"Not me. But I heard rumors."

"And ?"

"And let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Dean's not any happier with this answer than Sam, but Dr. Robert shuts them up by moving the sensor over Sam's belly. His brow furrows as he focuses on the tablet only he can see. That doesn't deter Dean – on the contrary ! – who skirts around the table and plants himself next to the smaller man, displaying through his whole body how willing he is to do harm if he's not allowed to watch.

Dr. Robert has no death wish, so he turns the tablet enough for Dean to be able to see in real time what's growing inside Sam. And a few seconds later, both men grow pale.

Sam panics.

"What is it ?" he demands, gripping Dean's wrist.

His brother seems at a loss for words. He opens his mouth and gapes at him. Dr. Robert does not fare better, adding his own impersonation of a fish out of water. Eva keeps stroking Sam's shoulder to console her patient, although she's as clueless as him. So Sam wrenches the tablet out of the doctor's hands and gapes in his turn.

His baby is already very well developed, and as far as Sam can tell, it seems big and healthy. The problem is, it looks nothing like its genitor.

Not the human one, anyway, which means the thing that made Sam pregnant is probably not that easy on the eyes. And considering the size of the spawn he's been carrying for about two months now, the adult model must be enormous. And its teeth and claws thrice bigger than the small daggers the cub's sporting.

Sam feels like fainting when he imagines how big this thing will have grown in seven months, and remembers he has no natural way to expel it.

"How…" he begins. "Can you do a C-section ?"

"I can, but I'm not sure…"

"Get it out of me !" Sam yells.

"Sam, listen…" Dr. Robert tries again.

"You heard my brother, doc. He wants it out, so do it."

"But there's no way of being sure…"

"I don't care ! I can't keep this thing inside me, waiting for it to devour me alive."

This puts the physician in gear at last, moving around the room to gather scalpels and gauze, a few vials as well as other tools Sam has no name for. Eva pushes a three-wheeled tray that she sticks in place with three books next to the table. Then she turns to Sam, takes his shoes and jeans off, and then his boxers. Next she covers him again with a sheet that hardly hides his privates while Dr. Robert uncorks a vial and pours some of its contents on a cotton ball.

"Last chance to change your mind, Sam. I can't assure you this is risk free."

"Do it."

Sam searches for Dean's eyes and squeezes his hand one last time. If he has to die, then he'll be the one to decide how and when. Not the parasite that planted itself in his guts to feed on him.

Dean squeezes back when Dr. Robert finally brings the chloroform down to his nose.

\-------------

Dean watches Sam's eyes closing with a feeling of dread. Dr. Robert's admonition runs through his mind, and he wonders what could happen. Could Sam's heart stop, or his lungs, keeping oxygen from flowing to his big brain ? That would be a terrible loss for this world, and no one but a small group of people would be aware of it. Dean's angry suddenly, more than he's ever been since they realized Sam had been raped by some monster and made pregnant by it. Sam didn't deserve this, not him, not again. It shouldn't have happened after all the drama he went through already, all the sacrifices he's agreed to for the world to be able to go on and people to live free of Lucifer.

Eva slips a hand under the sheet and grips Sam's cock.

"Hey !" Dean protests, grabbing her arm.

She shoots him a cool look but doesn't let go. On the contrary, she seems to grip harder, in the kind of move that generally sends Sam to heaven but this time doesn't make him twitch at all.

"He's under," she declares, and then lets go of Sam.

Robert dabs Sam's skin with some disinfectant before he chooses a scalpel. His hand is firm as he begins to incise.

And then all hell breaks loose.

As deeply asleep as he seemed to be, Sam suddenly sits and clasps the doctor's wrist, twisting hard until he lets go of the scalpel but not soon enough before the bone snaps, breaking where Sam's inhuman power is still holding him. Once Sam is standing up, advancing on Dean in all his naked glory, Eva tries to shoot him with a syringe full of some unknown liquid but she's no match against Sam and one small punch is enough for her to go crashing into the nearest furniture, down for the count.

Then Sam turns back towards him so Dean holds his hands up to appease the beast controlling his brother.

"It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you. I get it, no cutting Sam's belly. I promise. We okay ?"

Sam watches warily, or rather the thing in charge at the moment. He seems shaky on his legs, taking in his surroundings in search of a way out, certainly, but Dean is not about to let him run, especially in this state. He manages to reach the tray, miraculously still standing, and finds the vial of chloroform that he throws at Sam's face, hoping it will work.

The effect is immediate, so quick that Dean doesn't have time to break Sam's fall.

\-------------

He feels bad when he wakes up, but it's nothing compared to learning that he's still with child. That the monster defended itself once again by using his body to harm the ones who were trying to help him.

In a moment of sheer insanity brought on by despair, he grabs the demon knife he knows where to find in Dean's jacket and cuts his own belly. Dean shouts at him, tries to take the knife from his hands, but Sam's on a mission and he keeps cutting deeper.

Then his heart stops beating.

 

He wakes up again, feeling worse than the first time. His face is secured between Dean's hands who repeats his name again and again with the same despair Sam was feeling a few moments before. There's blood everywhere, and yet his stomach doesn't hurt.

When he's strong enough to look at it, he can see that, despite all the blood, the skin is unmarked where he cut it.

He throws his head back and shuts his eyes to stop the tears.

How is he supposed to beat a monster who can stop his heart and sew his skin back at will ?

\-------------

They arrive in Sioux Falls to listen to more bad news.

With his usual efficiency, Bobby has discovered the culprit behind Sam's pregnancy and he shows them the old grimoire written in a language Sam can hardly decipher.

"It's a Leenox," he tells them. "And if it took me so long to find it, it's because this monster is not from our world."

"Then where's it from ?" Dean asks in surprise.

"One of many parallel universes, I guess. Either it used a tear between universes to hop in here, or someone summoned it."

"Who would be stupid enough to summon something that dangerous ?! Don't answer that. I know, dumb question."

"So what is it ?" Sam asks instead. "And what does it want here ?"

"Far as I can tell, it's a parasite, or at least that's the way it appears in our world. It's nothing more at first than a spirit, an essence, so it needs a vessel to colonize. That's what happened to Garth but also to those victims you were investigating, right before it crossed Sam's path."

"The victims were mauled from the inside out, and Garth dissolved. What's the connection ?"

"They served different purposes. Kind of one played the male and the other the female. Maybe this alien doesn't know about genders, or doesn't care. Its essence first found a body to inhabit that would stand as both protection and genitor / feeding source. That would be Garth's fate, but also of the many other guys it worked with before. And of course, no one would know about it, unless they witnessed the whole thing like Sam did."

Bobby pauses then, not sure how he should bring the next part up.

"And then, there's the hunt for another kind of vessel."

Sam's too scared to ask, pretty sure he knows already what kind of fate awaits him at the end of this pregnancy. The illustrations in the old book Bobby found are terrifying, too close to his nightmares, and he refuses to follow Bobby's hand as it punctuates his explanations with visuals.

"Then you have the carrying vessels : the victims you found mutilated. They were the wombs, the entity's first failed attempts to become corporeal. And clearly something went wrong each time since it tried again and again."

"You say those five guys and girls were pregnant with the entity's child already ?" Dean takes over when he realizes it's all too much for Sam to ask for more details.

"Not its child. With the entity trying to create its own body. But I guess those people weren't strong enough so it jumped ship and found another womb."

"It just… what ? Popped out, like Alien ?"

Dean winces at the sound of his own words while Bobby and Sam stare him down for the images he brought to their mind.

"Ignore the idjit," Bobby advises Sam. "You've got something all the others didn't. There's a real chance it will keep you strong enough to withstand whatever Junior will throw at you."

"You mean my demon blood ?"

"About time it proves useful, right ?"

\-------------

Now they know what they're fighting against, but they're no closer to finding a solution to get rid of the baby monster. Dean's comparison with Alien keeps turning in Sam's head, imagining himself with a giant hole in his torso like all the victims, and somehow it seems worse than integrally disappearing. Maybe because Garth didn't seem to suffer – at least when he still had a face and a mouth to show and express pain – whereas the victims looked like they were still screaming when they were found.

Sam's feeling of dissociation grows with his rounding belly and days passing. Accepting this new silhouette is beyond him. He's tried to hide behind huge shirts, from Dean especially, but nothing has worked. Not even mentioning that he's getting so big that moving fast and noiselessly starts to become a challenge, Dean, with his usual subtlety, won't let him get away with it. Every time they have sex, his hands, like magnets, always end up on his belly. And to his utter shame, Sam takes comfort in it, in the feel of Dean's strong and warm body, when his own deformed one horrifies him.

Work might alleviate his worry, but he can't do much in his state, save for research, and he's read twenty times already the translations Bobby made of his findings about the Leenox. He's going stir crazy, and his sleep pattern is totally disrupted. He often ends up in the middle of the night in front of the TV – sometimes Dean joins him and promptly falls asleep again, his ear against Sam's belly, always alert to danger.

Sam keeps to himself the visions his mind is filled with every time he closes his eyes. Unlike that time when Dean came for him at Stanford, he's not trying to hide an ability that freaks him. It's the thing in his womb that forces him to shut up. That's also why he believes there's a very good chance this is the monster's world he's seeing, and not just hallucinations. If the Leenox is able to influence him and take control of his body, even for a limited time, it makes sense that Sam be able to capture images of grey and brownish creatures who live to fight and defeat their opponents, always winning more space to extend themselves to everyone else's detriment. The ones who don't expand die.

He thinks he understands now why this one came to their Earth. It's been its own doing, or an opportunity it seized to expand like no other member of its species had ever done by populating a whole planet by itself. If Sam carries this pregnancy to the end at last, if the monster gets a body of its own, it will be all too easy for it to enslave humans and absorb the planet to change it into its playground.

So Sam racks his brains again and again and decides that if the monster doesn't play fair, he'd better follow the same rules.

\-------------

Sam's idea is to seek a mage's help.

He's not even sure what a mage – sorcerer, wizard, witch – could do for him. But if the direct approach has failed, it means the answer is probably less natural and more magical. Supernatural, just as this pregnancy itself is. Hence the need for an expert in the peculiar art of witchcraft.

Which is easier said than done since the Winchesters are not really popular in those circles. One might even say that most witches would be quite relieved to see one of them die in the most horrible way, never to come back to hunt them, and his brother left to despair.

The first one he meets laughs for ten long minutes after seeing his belly. Sam leaves in the foulest mood ever, as illustrated by the fact that Dean and Bobby make themselves scarce for two days after his return. But they don't even hold a grudge against him, considering mood swings are par for the course in his current state. Which pisses him off even more, because he's not a girl, okay ? He might be with something akin to a child, but that doesn't make him a woman and mood swings, probably like bizarre cravings, come from hormonal changes.

The fact that he craves tons of things, including banana truffles and sex on the salvage yard's roof, and that his hormones do play games with his moods ? Still. doesn't. make. him. a. woman. Understood ?!

The next sorcerer probably uses his talent to get what he wants, and that includes sexual favors. Under the pretext of trying to see what he could do about Sam's growing problem, he gets him naked, intending to take advantage of him in his turn. Sam doesn't need magical power to fight off the magical bindings and knock him unconscious.

The third one, that he visits with Dean to make sure there won't be a repeat performance of the previous _misunderstanding_ , doesn't have a great sense of humor, taking himself very seriously indeed. He's a true fanatic who tells him square and front that he brought his fall onto himself and has to live it through. Or rather die.

After two more attempts that prove just as unsuccessful, Sam gives up.

\-------------

Bobby wakes Sam up from his slight doze in the middle of the afternoon. He fell asleep, face in Dean's lap, while his brother watched some telenovela Sam could almost appreciate too with the level of hormones flowing inside his veins these days. He likes how over the top all the characters are, the height of their feelings, hormones turning him into a kindred spirit. But he fell asleep anyway, and his eyes close again of their own volition, Dean's hand in his hair lulling him back into oblivion.

"Sam, you have a guest," Bobby shakes his shoulder again.

Sam blearily looks at the entrance to find Crowley, casual and cool as usual, leaning against the doorframe.

"Hello, Moose."

The king of hell comes closer as both Sam and Dean stand up. With a marked disinterest for tact, Crowley stares at Sam's belly and even goes as far as putting one hand on it. Instinctively, Sam takes a step back and Crowley just smiles.

"I'd ask if this is your brother's lovechild, but this thing reeks of evil to such levels you pussycats couldn't ever dream to reach. A child fathered by you two, Dumb and Dumber, would only prove dumberer."

Dean isn't amused and he steps forward, protecting Sam from a closer inspection of his outgrown midriff.

"Unless you're in possession of any relevant information that will help us remove this monster safely, you can shut up now, Crowley."

"Now, now. Where's the love, boys ?"

Sam finds he has no patience for Crowley's regular comedic show and what it might hide today.

"Why are you here ?" he cuts in.

Crowley considers him for a minute.

"Word on the streets of hell is that you're looking for a powerful witch. Powerful and forgiving enough to help two hunters who never had any qualm killing their kind."

"And what if we were ?"

"Then I'd tell you that I do know such a witch."

\-------------

They don't trust Crowley, of course, but they don't have much choice. So they agree to meet with the witch and Crowley brings her the next day.

She's called Olivette and doesn't look like one of the oldest witches walking among humans. More like a forty-something elegant woman, attractive and down-to-earth.

"Crowley tells me you boys are in a bit of a pinch. Although now that I see you, I'd qualify this as a big one."

Sam is getting tired of being the butt of everyone's poor sense of humor.

"Can you help ?" he simply asks.

"Help with what ? Giving birth ?"

"Making it disappear would be my first choice. I don't really care to be devoured by my offspring."

Olivette seems taken aback.

"I can understand that, but I think I need a bit more information."

She turns to Crowley as if the king of hell might be responsible for Sam's pregnancy.

"Don't look at me, sweetheart. I'm just the messenger. Believe me when I say I wouldn’t choose Moose here to carry my child if I ever desired one."

Dean comes forward and attempts to explain the situation.

"My little brother here was made pregnant against his will by a monster we believe to be called a Leenox. It killed the other "father" already and Sam is next in line as far as we were able to find out. We need to avoid delivery at all costs, and that's why you're here."

Olivette turns back to Sam. She closes her eyes, hands slowly rising to approach his belly like it's a frightened animal she has to placate first before it will accept her caresses. Sam actually feels her power when she finally joins her palms to his distended stomach, and it's like a zing of pleasure going through him, so good he can't help moaning.

"I will help," Olivette says when she takes her hands back, "but only if I get full latitude to operate."

"What do you mean ?" Dean asks, wary.

"First, I need four assistants."

"No way," Dean answers.

"One assistant," Bobby compromises when he sees Olivette turning to leave.

"Three," she shoots back.

"Two," Sam settles.

Olivette watches him for a long moment and he wonders what she sees.

"Very well, two, but it can't be less. This is a powerful enchantment, and I need the back-up for my counter spells to work. I'll have to use the most powerful witches I know to help here."

"We get it," Bobby says. "What else ?"

"You do as I say. For starters," she turns to Dean, "you build a delivery seat with the specs I'll give you."

"You mean he'll still have to deliver the baby monster ?"

"Killing it inside him would kill your brother too. Is that what you want ?"

Dean places a hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Of course not."

"I didn't think so. Which means yes, he'll have to deliver the baby, and then I'll deal with it, once it's outside Samuel."

"How is he going to deliver it ?" Bobby worries. "In case it escaped your attention, Sam is male. He was not exactly created to give birth."

"Which is why I'm going to transform him for a little while. Turn him into something that can give birth anyway."

"You want to turn him into a woman ?!" Dean cries out.

"That's not what she's thinking of, Dean," Sam calms him down. "Right, Olivette ?"

Olivette smiles, clearly enjoying what she's going to tell them.

"Turning your whole body into another sex would require much energy, especially on your part, and you don't have that much to begin with, since a lot of it is pumped by the baby. Giving you the parts you need to be able to bear children without a sweat and give birth to them is much easier."

"And you know a species that can do that," Bobby concludes.

"I do."

Olivette watches them all, managing her effect, before her eyes settle on Sam.

"There's this species, close to werewolves, in which both genders can get pregnant as long as they are what they inappropriately call weaklings. Very rare, and they're good at hiding, but I know where to find them and the way to make you one of them temporarily."

The silence surrounding her statement is pregnant with incredulity.

"You want to turn Sam into a monster ?!" Dean is the first to react. "One of those monsters we hunt down ?"

Olivette positively glows with mirth.

"Absolutely. He'll get to experience not only what being a womb in this society means, but also the constant fear for your life that knowing you're different and chased for it brings to your everyday life. Isn't that poetic justice ?"

"Don't give me that bullshit ! We hunt and put down the monsters that arm people. Sam most of all is the kind of bleeding heart who will think twice about killing anything. If there ever was a need for justice, then it should have been me in his place."

"Well, maybe you weren't pretty enough for this entity."

Dean gratifies her with a fake hurt look and puts a hand to his heart.

"Oh, witch, how you wound me !"

"I doubt that very much."

They look at each other with a semblance of smile and Sam can see the thaw happening in front of him. Dean is nowhere near trusting her, but he's willing to work on it. Sam is in the same place, and desperation over his fate is only a part of it. They've never heard of Olivette, and never has Bobby, or John Winchester if his journal can be trusted, in all the years they've hunted monsters, which means she probably minded her own business and never tried to take over the world.

"How can we be sure you won't turn on Sam ?" Dean asks, showing his thoughts have somewhat taken the same direction as Sam's. "That instead of helping him, you're not trying to make sure he has no chance to survive ?"

"You can't, not really. The only expectation you might have is that I realize that, however dangerous you are to my kind, and however pleasant the idea of your disappearance, never to come back, is to us witches, you and your brother are still preferable to a monster like the Leenox taking over our planet. If my plan was to kill you, I could just let fate happen. Because right now, Samuel is nothing but a dead man walking."

\-------------

The werewolves live under tents. The camp is tidy, permeated with a strong sensation that the whole group is ready to disappear at a moment’s notice, probably generations of members teaching their offspring the danger represented by hunters and the need to be ready to leave at all times.

One by one, the campers get out of their tents or come back from their current occupation to meet with the newcomers and ensure the safety of their family.

Sam knows it would be smarter to transmit sympathy and trust as he’s about to put his life into the hands of these creatures, do his best to generate good will towards him. But his own atavism comes into play and makes him tense, fist closed, wishing for a gun. It's also possible that the entity might be fearing them too, knowing they can do it harm.

The irony of his presence is not lost on Sam. Had Dad ever crossed paths with these people, he would have shot first and asked questions later, and then where would Sam be now ? Waiting for a certain death in his brother’s arms, too scared to say all the things he feels for him, instead of making this desperate dash for survival.

Olivette is smirking next to him and he wonders if she's able to hear his thoughts somehow. She grabs his arm and leads him to the farthest tent, from which a male almost as tall as Sam gets out. He's broader, and a lot scarier in his half-transformed state, elongated teeth and razor-sharp claws showing to indicate he's ready to take on any aggressor. He's also naked, and his sex is more than impressive. His whole person is, to be honest, radiating power and mystery, as well as mastery. He seems to be in his fifties, but Sam can't be sure if his references apply to this species, and if age means anything for them, in the same way it does among humans.

Whatever, this is obviously the leader Olivette has been looking for and she bows her head respectfully in front of him. Sam decides it's probably a good idea to copy her moves at the moment.

"Great Seshi," she says, "I've come to seek your help."

The were looks at them with the same detachment.

"Talk, witch," he orders in a deep, low voice that resonates just as deep inside Sam and he feels powerless to deny his influence.

"This human," Olivette explains, showing Sam, "is carrying the bane of our world. As you can see, his body has been forcefully impregnated by a Leenox to be the way into our plane of existence."

"Leenoxes can't invade our world," Seshi refutes. "They have no psychic power over our kind and humans are too fragile to carry a viable baby at full term. Let the human die in childbirth, the problem will resolve itself."

Olivette almost manages to hide her surprise at Seshi's knowledge.

"This would be possible with any other human being, great Seshi. But this one is very special. His blood is strong, making him able to resist the Leenox's influence and protect his loved ones. Strong enough that he became Lucifer's vessel."

There's something looking awfully like respect in the werewolf's eyes now, and Sam hates him for it. Being Lucifer's vessel is the worst thing that ever happened to him, the one he would try to hide, never write on his hunter's resume if he could get away with it, and this werewolf might see him as something other than a nuisance, a roach to crush under his shoes, because of his demon blood and super vessel ability ? This is a relationship fated to doom from the beginning and Sam wants to tell the were how he fought against Lucifer, how he managed to push him back to get the upper hand and stop hurting his brother. How he kept fighting him in the cage, and through the terrible memories of hell that the pregnancy put an end to – and isn't that the only good thing about the whole _ordeal_ ?! Even if Sam now lives in the fear that, should he die giving birth, he'll end up back in the cage, facing Lucifer and Michael once more, and he certainly didn't plan to die so quickly again, to give up on the love Dean and him now share. Which is why he shuts up and doesn't begrudge the werewolf his misplaced admiration, not aloud anyway. Because he needs this monster in order to fight another one and stay alive.

"So why do you need my help ?" Seshi wonders at the same time.

"Because if the Leenox has found the right genitor for itself, the body strong enough to make it corporeal in this dimension, then we're all screwed."

"Then kill the human already, before the end of the pregnancy. Again, problem solved."

"I'm touched you feel my life is so important," Sam can't refrain any longer from commenting, "but the situation is a little more complicated than that."

"There's nothing complicated about killing one of your kind. I've done it enough to know."

Anger swells deep inside Sam and his fist closes without his input, looking for a weapon to get rid of the monster. But he has none, Olivette talked him into coming unarmed. He agreed then, while Dean made everyone aware of how not cool he was with this idea, maybe even more than letting Sam and Olivette go alone at a camp full of dangerous werewolves. Sam understands his brother's view now and wishes he could put three or four silver bullets into the monster's heart and head.

Olivette is left to do damage control.

"Right, boys, you're both fierce warriors, but for those of us who happen to enjoy their life and wish for it to go on, please take a step back and listen."

Maybe she uses magic, or maybe it's just her feminine wiles at work, but Seshi does step back and Sam feels safe enough to do so too.

"Alright," Olivette says, "now let's talk about what we can do for each other and how to save this world, which is downright imperfect but the only one we've got."

"I'm listening," Seshi replies.

"Very well. First, Sam here has already tried to get rid of the child, and this is how we know he can't die at this moment. Furthermore, it's important that Sam doesn't die either by the end of his pregnancy, since it would transfer his whole power to the Leenox once it's corporeal. Which means Sam has to be able to deliver the _child_ like a woman would, before I take care of sending it back to where it belongs."

"I see where you're going with this. You want us to turn the human into a Faye-hé."

"I will assist with that, so that the change might be only temporary, but yes, this is the plan : giving Sam a real womb and the natural way to deliver a baby."

"You sure his body can handle the change ? Especially in his advanced state of pregnancy ?"

"There's no way to be sure, but it's strong and used to pain, so yeah, I think it will."

Seshi closes his eyes and hums for a few seconds, probably dissociating himself from his surroundings to think about it, or praying for his god's help in this matter. It lasts long enough for Sam to be on tenterhooks long before Seshi's eyes open again.

"I have two conditions," the werewolf announces.

Seshi doesn't say more, waiting for the humans to ask for his terms, petty show of power than angers Sam all the more.

"What is it ?" he finally asks, impatient.

For the first time, the were really looks at him, straight in the eyes –and it feels like a snake hypnotizing its prey before gobbling it whole and alive – and talks to him directly.

"These conditions are not negotiable. If you agree to them, you'll be bound by your word. Is your word valuable, Human ?"

"It is, Faye-hé."

"Then here it is : you will not tell anyone, including the mate whose scent I can smell on you, about anything you will see here, or the way you are going to become one of us. Even when you become human again, your word will prevent you from betraying us. Are we in agreement ?"

"We are."

There's no need to think about that one. He doesn't want Dean to put himself in danger by going after the werewolves. If need be, Sam will be the one to kill them all.

"What's the other condition ?"

"At some point, you'll have to bear a child for me or my son. If you have such power, carrying a Faye-hé shouldn't be such a challenge for you."

"I'm not a womb at your disposal !"

"That's exactly what you are, from my point of view."

The assessing look over Sam's big belly puts him even more in this place and Sam shudders in fright and disgust at the idea of being pregnant again, and with this monster's offspring. But if this is the condition for his help, Sam is ready to promise anything. As long as Olivette's spell turns him back right after they get rid of the Leenox, he'll be safe and unable to deliver on a promise extracted under duress.

"Only if I get to choose where and when, and it's a one-time deal. Agreed ?"

"Agreed."

Sam knows he should read the fine print, or in this case search further for any possible loophole in this fucked-up contract, but he's kind of desperate here. So they shake on it, and the werewolf's smile is more frightening than his previous attitude.

"We'll begin at nightfall. In the meanwhile, the weaklings will prep you."

"Prep me ?"

Seshi turns his back on him without replying, but a few younger and much less bulky werewolves surround Sam, males and females that Sam guesses are the ones able to carry children in this species. They lead him towards a tent made of blue and light-grey pieces of cloth. The inside is warm and a bit too dark despite the light passing through the material forming the walls. It's probably enough for werewolves, but human eyes are not that good.

They begin to take his jacket off and Sam lets it go. Shirt and undershirt follow the same way and still he says nothing. But when hands grip his jeans, he decides enough is enough. He's still trying to get his head around being raped, he won't let more people get him naked and vulnerable. He doesn't believe they need to for the change to happen, not with Olivette's spell.

The Faye-hé relent and take him to the cushions piled on one side, pushing him to sit on them. One of the weres comes back to him with a vial of some oil that he begins to paint Sam's upper torso with while others play with his hair that they attach in a ponytail and another werewolf paints his back. The oil burns a bit when it's applied, and Sam realizes then that he was getting cold. All those sensations combine to make him drowsy and a lot more pliant, ready to accept anything.

The Faye-hé had to expect that, for they soon take hold of his jeans once again and, this time, get him naked in two seconds. All hands then help to apply the oil all over him, including the inside of his mouth and ass, and there are even a few drops of oil pushed inside his urethra. Already turned on by all the sensations, the fingers inside his ass and the two hands gripping his cock, Sam is hard in no time at all, and he wants more. More of the burning oil and the caressing hands, more fucking. But Dean's not here and he won't see him for hours, so he lets the pleasure grow with whatever he can get.

He's got no clue about how many hours they pass in there. The weaklings never stop caressing him, the oil penetrating his body, keeping him warm and happy, sated and open for more. The tent has become totally dark for him by the time the hands stop their caresses and help him to his feet. He's a bit dizzy, but most of all eager to see what will happen next.

The fire burning bright in front of Seshi's tent hurts his eyes and he closes them for the last steps that take him to the leader waiting for him. Seshi's still naked, just like the five other very male and very aroused Faye-hé standing around the flames. Sam feels small somehow next to them – a feat only his father ever managed to achieve before – but not in any danger. Even realizing the weaklings have disappeared doesn't alert him.

But his judgment is probably impaired, because Seshi comes closer, body against body, aroused cock against aroused cock, and his hands settle on Sam's waist, filling his whole universe in this very second. The were's scent is overwhelming and Sam feels his cock pulsing, ready to shoot his load. The hands descend on his ass, spreading his cheeks to get to his hole before clawed fingers push inside him and ram out of him any resistance Sam might be willing to oppose as he comes at last. At the same time, Seshi's head leans down and the werewolf bites Sam. So hard he takes a good piece of meat with him when he lets go of Sam's shoulder.

The pain is intense, but sadly it's nothing new to him. His eyes have opened, and he can see Olivette, wearing a long, majestic gown and watching him with an unreadable expression on her face. He's no longer sure she has his best interest at heart, but the plan is now in motion and there's nothing he can do to stop it. When a second werewolf plants his teeth in his other shoulder from behind and bites some flesh off in his turn, he yells but can't begin to try and escape.

The third wolf attacks his buttock, just like the fourth one bites his second cheek, and both take their pound of flesh too. All of them touch him possessively, highlighting his impotence. But the worst comes with the last two werewolves, one who gets his teeth on his sac, and the other one aiming for his dick. Sam screams in agony when the skin and meat come off.

Seshi lets go of him, and Sam falls down to the ground, unable to keep himself standing. He hurts so bad, and he wonders if these are his last moments, if the werewolves are going to eat him alive and this is why they take places on each side of his body, looking down on him.

Olivette stands at his head now. Her eyes seem mad, lit from the inside by some immeasurable power that could very well destroy him too. Her hand holds a vial when she raises it over Sam, and the liquid pours on him, drop after drop, as she starts to chant.

"By the power of Circe, I bid thee ! Obey my words ! Human, become Faye-hé. Welcome the spirit of the wolf !"

More words in Latin follow, pronounced high and clear, and then more and more quickly. Sam feels lightheaded, conscious but powerless.

And then a new pain flashes through him, the worst kind, the one that grips you hard and won't let go, wracking your nerves and your ability to feel or think anything else.

He wishes for Dean, calls him in a terrified cry when he can't contain the pain inside him anymore.

It consumes him whole, hours of cries and tears, passed from one Faye-hé's arms to another. The wolves surely consider Sam one of them now, for they take care of him endlessly. They shush his moans and caress his trembling body. They wipe his brow and console him when the few minutes of sleep he manages turn into nightmares. They pet him all over, showing how his body now belongs to them, and even through his feverish mind he knows what it means, and that they could turn vicious at the first sign of rebellion from one weakling towards the dominant males.

He's too tired for that, too wrecked, and not in the fun, alcohol-driven way. Maybe turning into a weakling made him one, because he doesn't even feel the need to fight them off, to ask that they stop caressing him so intimately. He doesn't even try to push them off of him as the morning comes and Seshi gets him on his hands and knees to push his too-big cock through his hole and fuck him. Nor does he protest when the five other alpha males take their turn to impale him and come deep inside his ass. The pain is still too raw, his energy too depleted.

His body is healing, the bites already mostly closed, and if the flesh is still partly missing, there's a good probability that it will be restored to its previous state by the time night falls again this evening. The spell is done, Sam is now a Faye-hé, expected to obey the leader of the group and worship the dominant males.

Before the last werewolf has time to finish his business, Sam can see that Olivette has fallen asleep next to one of the tents. And he's pretty sure it's not an hallucination that makes him see Crowley standing watch not far from her, at the limit of the camp.

\-------------

The guys have been hard at work during Sam's absence.

The furniture in Bobby's study has been pushed back against the walls, leaving it free for the peculiar operation about to take place. The birthing chair is done, standing in the center of everything to give room for people to walk around and assist him, and what it lacks in prettiness is made up by sturdiness. Dean used an old chaise longue Sam recognizes, that he lifted up to have Sam at a good height for easy work and then cut off to make it possible for the witches to help him deliver. Sam's legs will be kept bent, his feet in stirrups that clearly were created out of outside rear-view mirrors. Sam shudders, imagining himself lying there already.

There's an iron cage in the corner and Sam can guess this will be the coffin they'll use to get rid of the monster once it's dealt with. It's somewhat heartening, the proof that Olivette and her assistants believe they can really pull this off and keep Sam alive.

Dean engulfs him in a bear hug as soon as he sees him. Sam still feels fragile but he needs the love and melts into his brother's embrace. There's just no word to express how Dean makes him feel when he cares about him.

"How are you ?" Dean finally asks.

"Wiped out, but alive, and hopeful. I just need to sleep it off."

He's not going to tell Dean about what happened out there. Not because he promised, but because Dean would go ballistic.

"Come, I'll put you to bed."

"Will you tuck me in ?"

"I'll even kiss your brow goodnight."

Such complaisance and the fact that he acts accordingly to his words are the sign of Dean's worry. Dean sits down on the bed next to him as Sam tries to find a position that won't hurt. He even refrains from asking any question until Sam falls asleep, which takes all of three seconds.

Sam wakes up alone, the fading light of the end of a beautiful fall afternoon bathing the bedroom. He's pretty sure Dean checked on him several times during his long nap, but his brother is not the kind of guy to sit by someone's sickbed and read for hours, so Sam's not surprised to find him gone. He stretches, happy to find that his body doesn't hurt so much now, just the residual pain here and there, in the places the weres bit him.

Remembering this new ordeal – he's got no time to cry over what happened and definitely refuses to think about any of it – encourages him to stand up and look at himself. He takes his shirt off and lets his pants fall down to the floor, standing naked in front of the old, tainted mirror. He turns one way, then the other, and is relieved to find that all traces of the bites and scratches are gone. In fact, every scar is gone, leaving his skin unblemished.

But it's not his scars he's worried about. All his fears are born from the strange sensation between his legs, and his breasts, heavier, rounder than usual. Nothing feminine, but definitely something fuller, softer.

He can't help but wonder how Dean will look at him now. It's not the first time Sam was turned into something bad, something monstrous, but he never let it happen without a fight. This time though, he became a werewolf after considering the possibility for all of a few seconds. Agreed with Olivette's plan right away, and it's all because everything has changed between him and Dean and he doesn't want to leave his brother's side.

But what if the very solution to get this is also what costs him Dean's love ? What if Dean can't accept the changes of Sam's body ?

"I could hear you thinking all the way down in the library," Dean says as he enters the bedroom.

Sam makes a face. He's not sure he wants Dean here right now, not when he's about to take a good look at the changes.

"Show me," Dean suggests, probably sensing Sam's hesitation.

Should he ? If Dean can't stand touching him after seeing it all, it will feel like everything he went through, the pain of turning werewolf, the heartache of letting the monsters touch him so intimately, the feeling that he betrayed Dean's faith in him once more, all of this was for nothing.

So maybe that's exactly why he should do it. Like ripping off a Band-Aid once and for all, pain flaring and then it's done.

He crosses the room and lies on the bed, waiting for Dean to follow him. Dean sits at the end of the bed, eyes riveted to Sam's body and his legs spreading to show him the new opening that will allow him to push the monster out when the time comes. This is the only part he wants to focus on, the fact that he will survive, not that his biology is now as fucked up as everything else in his life. And that includes his love life because, for all his love for Dean, Sam's quite aware that their relationship is not the healthiest one out there.

"You're beautiful," Dean murmurs, fascinated, and makes an aborted move to touch Sam, as if a new body means he doesn't feel quite like he still has permission to come closer.

Sam's worries disappear when he sees the lust in Dean's eyes, replaced by the need to explore a bit more what they could do together with this new plumbing he's just got. He lets his hands brush over his nipples that he finds maybe even more sensitive than before, and then slide down his big stomach and bypass it. Even aroused, he can't see much of his cock these days, but he finds it to give it a few good tugs that feel so good his legs fall apart even more.

Keeping his dick in one hand, he goes with the other looking for the new hole that was created a few hours ago with so much pain that he still hesitates to touch. But when he does, it's not pain that welcomes him. Nothing but pleasure, a passage opening so much more easily than the other hole Dean uses to make love to him. This pleasure is different too, not muted by pain, it's frank, direct, immediate. The deeper he pushes his middle finger inside this new path (can't call it a vagina yet, it's too much and too soon), the bigger Dean's eyes become, the dirtier his thoughts turn as they show on his face. Sam's reminded of the first time he fingered himself in front of Dean, and the way his still quite new lover reacted, inhibitions and previous habits forgotten to fuck him with a frenzy Sam had never gotten from any of his female partners, demonic one included.

He wants that too, now. Wants Dean to take him and help him forget everything else.

"Come here," he says, in the sultriest voice he can manage.

Dean is the most giving, happy lover he's ever known. Making love is like breathing to him, natural, simple and free. He loves nothing more than to make his lovers feel good and to let them know how much pleasure they offered him.

Nothing changes today as Dean touches him everywhere with the same reverence, kisses him hungrily on every erogenous spot, old and new ones alike, and Sam opens up for him, running away from memories of less consensual moments. Dean and him, they don't always understand each other or see eye to eye, but in bed, the partnership they built over years of hunting together leads to an astounding ability to read each other and offer just what the other needs.

Exhausted after their lovemaking, Sam dozes for a short while until he feels Dean about to get up. His hand grips Dean's arm before he can make it far, but Sam keeps fixing the pillow in front of his face when he speaks.

"I had to promise them something."

"What ?" Dean asks in a wary tone.

"Well, two things. That I wouldn't tell anyone about the way I was turned, or anything else about them. Especially to my mate."

"Makes sense. They probably fear that some hunter might come after them. Especially your mate. What's the other thing you had to promise ?"

Sam hesitates and this time takes a look at Dean, seing the old distrust taking over his brother's face.

"First you need to know that I don't intend to ever keep that promise and act on it."

"What is it, Sam ? Get it out."

"They obviously thought that my demon blood makes me special, so they asked that I promise to carry a child for them."

Dean's reaction is instantaneous.

"The hell you will ! A child is not something you do alone, and your mate doesn't agree with this. Not in a million year."

"Dean, don't worry. I told you I won't keep that promise, and I won't even be able to do it anyway. By the time they come for me, Olivette's spell will have turned me back into my fully human body and I won't be of any use to them as a womb. Plus how can you imagine I'd want to go through this again ? Of my own free will ?!"

Dean lies back down to take him in his arms and squeezes, hard.

"I know, sweetheart, I know."

When they get dressed and meet with Bobby for dinner, Sam feels more peaceful than he's been for a long while. They now have a good chance to make it through, and this time alone with Dean has reassured him about his place in his brother's life.

This feeling stays with him for the next three days, until what can be likened to his water breaks. It's black and oily, it's disgusting, and it's only the beginning of the worst thirty-two hours of his topside life.

\-------------

The witches arrive quickly. Dean and Bobby met Olivette's assistants during his time with the Faye-hé, so they introduce him to Rowena and Clea. One is a petite but flamboyant redhead with an attitude, and the other a reserved black woman who seems wary of the hunters but still willing to help.

"What is _he_ doing here ?" Sam asks, pointing an accusing finger at Crowley who suddenly appeared behind the witches.

" _He_ ," Crowley answers, "is here to ensure everyone's safe once the ankle-biter is out."

Sam certainly doesn't feel safe with his feet caught in the stirrups and his whole plumbing on display while the king of hell roams at will around the premises. As Crowley said earlier, delivery sure won't be easy-peasy and Sam's willing to use any help he can get. But he has a hard time believing Crowley is worried about their safety and wonders what his endgame is. And then the Leenox to be born moves inside of him, getting ready for its great entrance, and everything else fades away as he screams in pain.

He keeps doing nothing but that for hours. Never ever will he doubt or mock those who say women are tougher than men. Anyone able to withstand such pain is a hero in his book.

One of these unsung heroes suddenly appears in his visual field. She stands there gaping, aghast, and Sam wants the ground to swallow him whole in this very second.

"Sheriff Mills ?" Bobby sounds just as surprised as Sam.

"What the hell's going on here ?" she demands, hand already on her sidearm.

Wariness makes her approach slow and diffident, but Jody comes right next to Sam to check on him.

"I heard you crying. Are you here against your will, Sam ?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," he answers in a voice wrecked by all the screaming of the last hours. "But not because of the humans in this room."

He doesn't know what Bobby's told her exactly about the supernatural and all those creatures they hunt. But Bobby's clearly attracted to her and it means she has to be a tough nut to crack. As far as he knows, she's the only one here who ever gave birth, maybe she has a few good pieces of advice for him.

"The humans ? Are you implying there's something else around here ?"

"He is," Rowena confirms in her loudly accented voice. "That thing inside his belly is going to devour him if you stay in our way. Better be far away when it happens, Sheriff."

Jody stares at the three odd women who look nothing like doctors in their long, ritualistic gowns, but just like the past centuries' rejects they sure are. Rowena most of all, with her flaming hair and extravagant attitude, the aura of total confidence she projects around her.

"Sam ?" Jody insists, still not sure that her eyes are showing her what she believes she's seeing and that he doesn't need her help.

"It's okay, Jody. Those women are here to help me deliver, and Dean will protect me if need be. Don't worry."

Jody considers Dean and Bobby and seems satisfied. Crowley is nowhere to be seen, which probably helps too. That and the fact that Jody is indeed incredibly tough, faced with something so incongruous as a pregnant man in the throes of delivery.

"Come, I'll explain everything," Bobby tells her as he leads her back to the entry door.

They hear their muted voices for a few moments, then Jody says she will be back soon to check on Sam before she takes her leave, and everyone can see the pleased little smile on Bobby's face as he walks back into the room.

Jody's interference has distracted Sam for a short, almost blissful moment, but he's soon back to fighting against waves of pain that come quicker and harder as hours pass.

He feels like all the trouble and sacrifice to equip him with everything needed to give birth has been for nothing and that he's gonna split, shredded halves unrecognizable to those who care for him. And he knows Dean supports him with all his strength and love, gripping him tight to anchor him in the here and now, but he doesn't remember ever being so scared since he faced Lucifer. All those months he dared to think that the tortures were behind him, that he now deserved to be happy and loved, but no, he has to go through this again, this cycle of terror and debilitating pain that threatens to take away his sanity and his will to live. Only two things keep him fighting, his need to be with Dean and the fear of going back to hell.

Everyone takes turn watching over him. Bobby leaves first after more than twelve hours listening to Sam's screams. He's back five hours later. Dean tries to stay awake but finally agrees to go and rest for two hours with the promise that he'll be called back if anything happens. Sam's cries bring him back long before that, bleary-eyed, yawning wide, but Sam feels better just from seeing his big brother sitting back next to him.

"Any progress ?" Dean asks, leaning down to put his forehead on Sam's shoulder.

The shirt Sam wore at first is long gone, he's sweating too much to tolerate anything on his skin, and modesty seems like a joke at this point.

"None, regrettably," Clea laments, and she seems genuinely distraught for Sam.

"Maybe the little tyke doesn't feel wanted enough to come out," Rowena suggests.

Her heavy accent can be quite lovely but, after so many hours, her patience has worn thin and her snide remark delivered in a cutting tone is the result.

"Don't pretend you know what you're talking about, Mother. I find this comment utterly hilarious coming from you."

All eyes land on Crowley who's been busy reading Bobby's books and minding his own business. He lifts his head up and meets the sudden attention with a glare of his own.

"Mother, Crowley ?" Dean repeats.

"What ? Did you think I was born from the fumes of hell ? The sprog of a hellhound and a nymph, maybe ? So yes, Dean, I had a mother. Into each life some rain must fall. I got over it. Do it too."

"Am I supposed to be the rain in this metaphor, Fergus ? Because it would make you a downpour."

"Fergus ?" Dean repeats again, silently this time.

Dean's expressions, as his eyes go from Crowley to Rowena and then back again, are so comical that Sam would laugh if he could. But he's still fighting the nausea of the last assault of the monster against his intestines.

Dean's skin on his skin grounds him in a way nothing else could. Flashes of moments spent together sweeten the few minutes of not-pain he gets now and then. He goes as far as falling asleep for about ten minutes dreaming of Dean's kisses, the way his gorgeous mouth teases Sam's, luscious lips rolling over his, tasting him, making him feel wild and precious at once.

Another push of the monster wakes him up, battering ram looking for a crack to widen and infiltrate. Sam's not sure what's keeping the monster inside, his Faye-hé constitution or the spell Olivette and her assistants have cast, but he's pretty sure that, without any of this to protect his body, nothing would be left of him by now but a gory heap of half-chewed flesh.

Hours tick along the clock but seem much slower for Sam whose exhaustion makes him delirious at times. He often calls for Dean, as if his brother had left. He calls for Dad as if he was still alive.

Olivette comes back from her own lengthy nap looking fresh as a daisy. She confers with her fellow witches in a secret language Sam tries but fails to understand. He bets Crowley does, though, as the demon slaps his own face with his palm.

"Really, ladies ?" Crowley is amazed. "Taking notes about the size of Moose's shlong ?!"

There's no hope for Sam to get redder than he already is after all the efforts of these past hours, but his face makes a valiant attempt. Dean bursts out laughing and then seems to think better about it, ready to call for amends to be made in Sam's name.

"Don't be so crass, Fergus ! We're merely concerned, and impressed by Samuel's stamina."

"I bet you are, you old hags."

"The concern is real, though," Clea interrupts their bickering. "We're not sure how long Samuel will be able to resist the Leenox's power, nor what to do to help the progression of the baby inside the vagina."

Sam wrinkles his nose as if smelling something bad. He hates those last words.

"Maybe…" Dean begins, watching him, "is it possible that Sam's own dislike of his new body is causing some kind of blockade ? Or the fear of hurting even more if he lets the monster go down his… passageway ?"

"Good thinking, boy," Olivette approves with a calculating look at Sam.

She holds her hands out and the two other witches come closer, taking the leader's hands in theirs. Olivette's voice is two octaves lower than usual when she begins to chant some kind of soothing, prayer-like threnody, standing right in front of Sam. He immediately becomes dizzy and his unconscious hold over his body is loosened, awakening in him a terror like no other as he feels the monster move more than ever. And it's not only abject terror that makes him arch from the chair. Claws and fangs are suddenly slicing through his insides, small but numerous scratches that the Faye-hé body heals but too slowly to make them totally harmless. And the blood pooling in his womb helps the monster sliding down his hated vagina.

He begs everyone to stop this agony. Begs Olivette, Rowena and Clea, Dean and Bobby, God, Castiel, even Crowley. He begs them all to kill him already.

Dean yells at Olivette to stop whatever she's doing, that she's killing him, but the witches keep chanting their droning lamentation each in turn and Sam contorts every which way to try and drive the monster out at once. Despite his best efforts, the baby slowly descends through his newly built-in passage, progression clear to others thanks to the moving bulge stretching more than ever the skin of his belly. Lower and lower, the beast fights its way through, pain growing exponentially. Sam's belly had a little bit more than three months to stretch, lovingly massaged by Dean every day, but now his new morphology has to learn the trick under great stress in less than a few minutes. It's just not possible.

"Sam," Dean calls him, "I know you can do it, man. Stay strong."

"Shut up, Dean !" he rebuffs his brother and then screams again

Sam imagines himself cracking inside ; must be what being drawn and quartered feels like in reverse. But something extraordinary happens : he isn't torn apart, he's still alive, and the continuous pain is there to prove it.

Olivette stops the psalmody-like spell at once and gets between Sam's legs.

"I see its horns, Samuel. Now is the time to push it out."

"What do you think I've been doing ?!" he asks, piqued by her words.

The two other women are right next to her, and Crowley stands vigil nearby as soon as he's brought the cage closer. Dean and Bobby take place at Sam's sides and each take hold of one of his legs to help him spread them wider. It does nothing to alleviate the pain but he takes comfort in their closeness.

He pushes, again and again, wills the monster to get out, gathering all his courage and the last dregs of his stamina to expel it. He manages it by imagining how he will be able to sleep for days once he's done, safe next to Dean in a comfortable bed. He ignores the claws planted in his flesh as the monster progresses along the last inch of the tunnel it's been forced to travel by magic instead of eating its father alive.

And then it's free. Sam collapses back on the chair he hasn't left for a day and a half and leaves the witches to deal with the monster. He's done, and he's alive !

When he succeeds in opening his eyes again, the room is utter chaos. Olivette is lying on the floor, bloody scratches smearing her dress at shoulder's height, but she keeps muttering her entrapment spell, backed up by Rowena and Clea. Crowley is actually fighting the creature that just exploded out of Sam's insides. The monster's mouth is wide open, three rows of terrifying fangs doing their best to eat Crowley's face, and it's all the demon can do to keep it distant enough to keep his own face the way it's been for centuries.

Crowley's too busy with this to react in time when the monster escapes his hold and seeks the dinner it should have been feasting on right now. Dean only has time to throw himself between it and Sam. He gets a few deep gashes in his flank where his flesh met the monster's claws, but Sam grips the beast by its too-long arms and yells to Bobby to bring the cage. Dean helps and, in no time, the monster is trapped at last, unable to harm anyone anymore.

Bobby comes to stand in front of the iron cage agitated with wild jumps as the monster's doing its best to try and escape. He pronounces foreign words in his turn. Soon, bright tendrils are exfiltrated from the magic box still thrashing around. They hover over the room for a few moments before they take their leave.

"Bye, Garth," Bobby says. "Heaven awaits you."

\-------------

Olivette is not really surprised that everything worked out, she's been aware of her powerful abilities for a very, very long while now. But still, she's proud of herself for conducting this whole operation to a great success and teaching these hunters a lesson or two about witchcraft and its usefulness. Maybe the three men will think twice now before killing a witch.

Or maybe not, when they realize that Olivette's other spell, the one turning Sam Winchester into a Faye-hé, isn't about to end anytime soon. That contrary to the prediction she's quite sure he made, Sam will have to carry a child for the werewolves. That's the best revenge against the hunters she can think of, right after killing one of the Winchester boys and leaving the other one to cry over his loss, but this would send them into a killing spree she's trying to avoid. They dealt with the Men of Letters, now is not the time to get another enemy coming for them.

Olivette intends to be far away and incommunicado by the time Seshi comes for Sam Winchester. If the hunters try to find her, they will learn that there's a reason why they never heard about her before. Only Crowley would be able to find her, and the king of hell has his own agenda. He's pretty sure the Winchesters will cease being such a thorn in his side if the brothers have children together that they need to protect before they can think of going after him, so he made a deal with Olivette to keep Samuel's womb intact. Let them succumb to the temptation of creating something together rather than kill demons and monsters.

Of course Olivette agreed to the deal. After all, having the king of hell owing you one is a great advantage. And what do you know ? Maybe the Winchesters will be thankful too. Someday.

\-------------

Sam turns over, enjoying the cool feeling of the bed's sheets, stark contrast with the heat radiating from Dean. His brother has woken up first but stayed close instead of going about his day, and that tells Sam more than anything how frightened Dean has been.

Sam looks up at him, Dean's head held up by his fist, and smiles.

"Hey."

"Hey back at you. How do you feel ?"

Dean's fingers trace Sam's eyes, probably still bruised with lack of sleep. He looks at him for so long that Sam feels himself blush a bit under the scrutiny.

"Good enough. After all we've been through, I really can't complain."

Sam knows he has a lot to come to terms with, but he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth if his psyche is okay with dealing with all that happened to him in the background of his mind. In fact, he's so okay with it that there's only one thing still troubling him now that they've made sure he won't die today. He can't help but wonder what the witches are going to do with the monster.

"Are you sure we can trust those women with such a powerful tool ?" he asks.

Dean leans down and kisses him.

"I don't care," he answers. "You're alive and well, free of that thing, and that's all I wanna know."

This time, Dean's whole body leans down and he settles over Sam. They kiss again and decide that they'll spend the rest of the day just like that, making each other feel good.

This plan is a success.

\-------------

Rowena hurries away, a locked and hermetically closed cage dangling from her right arm. She needs magic to be able to hold it, but it's nothing much for someone of her talent and skills.

She uses more power to mask her presence from Olivette or Clea, or any other witch who might wonder where she is. Now is not the time to be found, not when she's making her escape at last with something that might help her harness enough power to command over the Coven and depose Olivette, but she needs to be away for a while to do so.

She finally manages to reach the house she's been working on for a while, cozy and soundproof. Here, she'll become the most powerful witch ever with the help of the creature inside the cage that she stole from the Coven after she overpowered Olivette and Clea.

 

One week later, Rowena casts her best spell in a desperate moment to avoid being eaten alive and sends the Leenox, already much bigger, back to its dimension. Still reeling with fear, she wonders if she should go back to the Grand Coven and make amends, or ask her son to grant her asylum.

Hell might be the safest bet, in case her spell wasn't powerful enough and the Leenox finds its way back to their Earth.

\-------FIN-------


End file.
